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jLL length science FiaiON NOVEL 

THE CITY IN THE SEA 

by WILSON TUCKER 



Who knows whether the strange events of this story 
might not one day occur? 

This is the story of an expedition— a strange and 
exciting expedition of one man and an army of 
women. 

He had come into the land of the women suddenly — 
and without warning. Tall, bronzed, muscular, he 
stood out among their pale skins and meek spirits. 
And when they learned of the land from which he 
had come — the land they hadn't even known existed 
—they had to follow him to it. 

One man and an army of women crossing the rem- 
nants of a post-atomic United States in search of the 
Unknown; it was an amazing trek. Miraculous things 
happened to the women. New emotions rose up to 
plague them. Once there was a near mutiny. Another 
time, seven of their number were killed. But it was 
when they reached the city in the sea that the stran- 
gest thing of all happened.... 

Exciting, imaginative, prophetic, THE CITY IN THE 
SEA is also something rare in science fiction— a com- 
pellingly human story. 

AT YOUR NEWS STAND NOW ! 



i 




you're that man, here's something that will 
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home study — over a comparatively brief periodf’ 
Always provided (hat the rewards were good — a 
salary of $1,000 to $l0,06or 

An accountant’s duties arc iitteresting. variedi 
ttid of real worth to his employers. He has •inulih^! 

Do you feel that such things aren't for you? 
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• Why not, like so many before you. investigate 
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Just suppose you were permitted to work in a 
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problems day by day — easy ones at first*- then 
more ditticulc ones. If you could do this — and 
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you know, is that success d ti come to the mao 
who is really JrajihJ. It's possible yout employert 
will notice your improvement in a very few weeks 
or months. Indeed, many LaSalle gradiutcs have 
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who arc trained in organization and management, 
arc tlie executives of the future. 

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aalaxy 

SCIENCE FICTION 



All ORIGINAl STORIES 
NO REPRINTS! 



E«Mr H I. GOLD 

Sci«nc4 Editar 

WILLY LEY 
AMntaM Edilar 

EVELYN PAIGE 
Art Diractor 

W. I. VAN OEK POEl 
Production Monoser 

J. Do MAIIO 
Ad^KTiHog Manoger 

JOHN >U40ERSON 



SEPTEMBER, 1952 Vol. 4, No. 6 

CONTENTS 

NOVELLA 

DELAY IN TRANSIT 

by F. L. Wollace 4 

NOVELET 

TH^ ALTRUIST 

by James H. Schmifz 135 

SHORT STORIES 






Cov«r by 
JACK COGGINS 

lllustrolmg 

SPACl^HAVEl BY 1940? 



Galaxy Sdtmc* Fittiom 

H published inontbljr bf 
GaUnr Publiihing CufM- 
faduu. Main oNces : 421 
Hudtoa Street. New York 
Id. N. Y. 3)c per copy. 
St^tcriptiona: (12 cop* 

kit 95.90 per year in the 
United Stater, Canada. 
Meatco. South and Cen* 
cral Aiserica and U.S. 
PoMetsiona. Elsewhere 
94 . 50 . Entered ai second* 
cUm matter at the. Post 
Ottre, New York. N. Y. 
Copyriahi. 1952, by Gal- 
axy Publishinc Corpora- 
tion. Robert M. Guinn, 
prewdem. All rights, in* 
CTudinf translaiicw, re* 
aerreJ. All material tub* 
■aittedmuMheaccompanied 
by Klf*Bcldres$ed Hamped 
envelopes. The publisher 
aasumes 00 responsibility 
for unsolicited material. 
Alt stories primed ia this 
macacine art fiction, and 
any similarity between chat* 
acieri and aauat persons 
ia eoiocidentil. 



THE SNOWBALL EFFECT 

by Katherine MacLean 49 

TODAY IS FOREVER 

by Ro^er Oee 62 

THE MOONS OF MARS 

by Dean E^ans 73 

TEA TRAY IN THE SKY 

by Evelyn E. Smith 100 

THE MOUSETRAP 

by Gordon R. Dicirson 117 



SCIENCE DEPARTMENT 

FOR YOUR INFORMATION 

by Willy ley 90 



FEATURES 

EDITOR’S PAGE 

by H. L Gold 3 

GALAXY'S FIVE STAR SHELF 

by GrofF Conlclin 132 



Priafod in the U. S. A. 
by Hie Guinn Ce.. Inc. 



IU«. U. t. Pal. OR. 




ON HEROES 



R eaders often question 
the heroism of fictional 
heroes, arguing that f>eo- 
ple don't behave so heedlessly. If 
you want the truth, writers some- 
times wonder about it, too. We 
use the flippant cockiness of the 
American hero, the casual stiff 
lip of the British, the cerebral 
bravery of the French, and more 
recently the grim fortitude, sup- 
ported by encyclopedic knowl- 
edge, of the spaceman, but 
always afraid of this criticism. 

Actually, there is a case for 
fictional heroism. It just isn’t 
carried far enough, which is true 
of much of our reasoning and is 
the purpose behind ‘these edito- 
rials. It's not that I believe I 
have the answers; I’m searching 
for them, hoping others will be 
interested and provoked enough 
to present viewpoints that' may 
advance science fiction. 

Anyone who has seen combat 
knows that the real horror is the 
anticipation and, afterward, the 
reaction. The same is true of less 
obvious heroism — dreading a 
business or social situation, beiirg 
forced into it, working it out 
somehow, and then, if it’s a grave 
one. trembling at the possible er- 
rors one made and their conse- 
quences. 

H«re is where fictional hero’-sm 



is hard to believe. On the basis 
of our personal experience, we 
can accept the bravery of people 
in circumstances they cannot 
evade or flee. Fear, naturally, is 
a powerful goad at such times, 
but not necessarily the fear you 
might expect. Our most decorat- 
ed soldier. Audie Murphy, for 
example, according to his auto- 
biography. was more afraid of 
social disapproval of any coward- 
ice he might display than of gun- 
fire. 

Where fictional heroism be- 
comes improbable is in the lack 
of expectant dread and later re- 
action. Used sparingly, both can 
make characters more real. But 
they can’t be used often. First of 
all, they halt stories when done 
without deftness. Next, not every- 
body suffers anticipation and re- 
action in the same way. Since 
this is not a psychological treat- 
ise, there’s no point going into 
varieties of behavior in danger; 
it ranges from fright paralysis to 
paralyzed fright. The latter is the 
phenomenon we recognize in fic- 
tional heroism, when anxiety is 
so acute that it must be escaped 
through action, however reckless. 

The situations we read about 
in stories are extremely unlikely 
to happen to us. But>how would 
(^Continued on page 115) 



ON HEIOES 



t 



DELAY IN 

By F. L WALLACE 

An unprovoked, meaningless night attack is terrifying enough 
on your own home planet, worse on a world across the Galaxy, 
But the horror is the offer of help that cannot be accepted! 








TRANSIT 



ilfustrated by SIBIEY 



44 



M: 



fUSCLES tense,” said 
Dimanche. “Neural 
. index 1.76, unusually 
high. Adrenalin squirting through 
his system. In effect, he’s stalking 
you. Intent: probably assault 

with a deadly weapon.” 

“Not interested,” said Cassal 
firmly, his subvocalization inaud- 
ible to anyone but Dimanche. 
“I'm not the victim type. He was 
standing on the walkway near 
the brink of the thoroughfare. 
I’m going back to the habitat 
hotel and sit tight.” 



“First you have to get there,” 
Dimanche pointed out. “I mean, 
is it safe for a stranger to walk 
through the city?” 

“Now that you mention it, no,” 
answered Cassal. He looke<^ 
around apprehensively. “Where 
is he?” 

“Behind you. At the moment 
he’s pretending interest in a mer- 
chandise display.” 

A native stamped by, eyes 
brown and incurious. Apparently 
he was accustomed to the sight 
of an Earthman standing alone, 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



5 



Adam’s apple bobbing up and 
down silently. It was a Godol- 
phian axiom that all travelers 
were crazy. 

Cassal looked up. Not an air 
taxi in sight; Godolph shut down 
at dusk. It would be pure luck if 
he found a taxi before morning. 
Of course he could walk back to 
the hotel, but was that such a 
good idea? 

A Gpdolphian city was peculiar. 
And, though not intended, it was 
peculiarly suited to certain kinds 
of violence. A human pedestrian 
was at a dehnite disadvantage. 

“Correction,” said Dimanche. 
“Not simple assault. He has 
murder in mind.” 

“It still doesn’t appeal to me,” 
said Cassal. Striving to look un< 
concerned, he strolled toward the 
bulldog side of the walkway and 
Stared into the interior of a small 
cafe. Warm, bright and dry. In- 
side, he might find safety for a 
time. 

Damn the man who was fol- 
lowing him! It would be easy 
enough to elude him in a normal 
city. On Godolph, nothing was 
fiormal. In an hour the streets 
would be brightly lighted — ^for 
native eyes. A human would con- 
sider it dim. 

“Why did he choose me?” 
asked Cassal plaintively. “There 
must be something he hopes to 
gain.” 

“I’m working on it,” said Di- 



manche. “But remember. I have 
limitations. At short distances I 
can scan nervous systems, col- 
lect and interpret physiological 
data. I can’t read minds. The 
best I can do is report what a ^ 

person says or subvocalizes. If 
you’re really interested in finding 
out why he wants to kill you. I 
suggest you turn* the problem 
over to the godawful police.” 

“Godolph, not godawful,” cor- 
rected Cassal absently. 

That was advice he couldn’t 
follow, good as it seemed. He 
could give the police no evidence 
save through Dimanche. There 
were various reasons, many of 
them involving the law, for leav- 
ing the device called Dimanche 
out of it. The police would act if 
they found a body. His own, say, 
floating face-down on some quiet 
Street. That didn't seem the 
proper approach, either. 

“Weapons?” 

“The first thing I searched him 
for. Nothing very dangerous. A 
long knife, a hard striking object. 

Both concealed on his person.” 

Cassal strangled slightly. Di- 
manche needed a good stiff 
course in semantics. A knife was 
still the most silent of weapons. 

A man could die from it. His 
hand strayed toward his pocket. 

He had a measure of protection 
himself. 

“Report,” said Dimanche. “Not 
necessarily final. Based, perhaps. 



4 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



on tenuous evidence.’^ 

“Let’s have it anyway.’* 

“His motivation is connected 
somehow with your being ma- 
rooned here. For some reason you 
can’t get off this planet.” 

That was startling information, 
though not strictly true. A thou- 
sand Star systems were waiting 
for him, and a ship to take him to 
each one. 

Of course, the one ship he 
wanted hadn’t come in. Godolph 
was a transfer point for stars 
nearer the center of the Galaxy. 
When he had left Earth, he had 
known he would have to wait a 
few days here. He hadn’t expect- 
ed a delay of nearly three weeks. 
Still, it wasn’t unusual. Interstel- 
lar schedules over great distances 
were not as reliable as they might 
be. 

Was this man, whoever and 
whatever he might be, connected 
with that delay? According to 
Dimanche, the man thought he 
was. He was self-deluded or did 
he have access to information 
that Cassal didn’t? 

"l^ENTON Cassal, sales cngx- 
neer, paused for a mental 
survey of himself. He was a good 
engineer and, because he was ex- 
ceptionally well matched to his 
instrument, the best salesman 
that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the 
basis of these qualifications, he 
had been selected to make a long 



journey, the first part of which 
already lay behind him. He had 
to go to Tunney 2 1 to sec a man. 
That man wasn’t important to 
anyone save the company that 
employed him, and possibly not 
even to them. 

The thug trailing him wouldn’t 
be interested in Cassal himself, 
his mission, which was a commer- 
cial one, nor the man on Tunney. 
And money wasn’t the objective, 
if Dimanche’s analysis was 
right. What did the thug want? 

Secrets? Cassal had none, ex- 
cept, in a sense, Dimanche. And 
that was too well kept on Earth* 
where the instrument was in- 
vented and made, for anyone this 
far away to have learned about 
it. 

And yet the thug wanted to 
kill him. Wanted to? Regarded 
him as good as dead. It might 
pay him to investigate the matter 
further, if it didn’t involve too 
much risk. 

“Better start moving.” That 
was Dimanche. “He’s getting sus- 
picious.” 

Cassal went slowly along the 
narrow walkway that bordered 
each side of that boulevard, the 
transport tide. It was raining 
again. It usually was on Godolph, 
which was a weather-controlled 
planet where the natives , like 
rain. 

He adjusted the controls of the 
weak force field that repelled the 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



7 



rain. He widened the angle of the 
field until water slanted through 
it unhindered. He narrowed it 
around him until it approached 
visibility and the drops bounced 
away. Ke swore at the miserable 
climate and the near amphibians 
who created it. 

A few hundred feet away, a 
Godolphian girl waded out of the 
transport tide and climbed to the 
walkway. It was this sort of thing 
that made life dangerous for a 
human— Venice revised, brought 
up to date in a faster-than-light 
age. 

Water. It was a perfect engi- 
neering material. Simple, cheap, 
infinitely flexible. With a mini- 
mum of mechanism and at break- 
neck speed, the ribbon of the 
transport tide flowed at different 
levels throughout the city. The 
God5lphian merely plunged in 
and was carried swiftly and 
noiselessly to his destination. 
Whereas a human — Cas.sal shiv- 
ered. If he were found drowned, 
it would be considered an acci- 
dent. No investigation would be 
made. The thug who was trailing 
him had certainly picked the 
right place. 

The Godolphian girl passed. 
She wore a sleek brown fur. her 
own. Cassal was almost positive 
she muttered a polite “Arf?” as 
she sloshed by. What she meant 
by that, he didn’t know and 
didn’t intend to find out. 



“Follow her,” instructed Di- 
manche. “We’ve got to investi- 
gate our man at closer range.” 

O BEDIENTLY, Cas.sal turned 
and began walking after the 
girl. Attractive in an anthropo- 
morphic, seal-like way, even 
from behind. Not graceful out of 
her element, though. 

The would-be assassin was still 
looking at merchandise as Cassal 
retraced his stei)s. A man, or at 
least man tyi>e. A big fellow, 
physically quite capable of vio- 
lence, if size had anything to do 
with it. The face, though, was 
out of character. Mild, almost 
meek. A scientist or scholar. It 
didn’t fit with murder. 

“Nothing,” said Dimanche dis- 
gustedly. “His mind froze when 
we got close. I could feel his 
shoulderblades twitching as we 
passed. Anticipated guilt, of 
course. Projecting to you the 
action he plans. That makes the 
knife definite.” 

Well beyond the window at 
which the thug watched and 
waited, Cassal stopped. Shakily 
he produced a cigarette and fum- 
bled for a lighter. 

“Excellent thinking,” c o m • 
mended Dimanche. “He won’t at- 
tempt anything on this street. 
Too dangerous. Turn aside at the 
next deserted intersection and let 
him follow the glow of your cigar- 
ette.” 



t 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



The lighter flared in his hand. 
"That’s one way of finding out,” 
said Cassel. “But wouldn't I be a 
lot safer if I just concentrated 
on getting back to the hotel?” 
“I’m curious. Turn here.” 

“Go to hell,” said Cassal ner- 
vously. Nevertheless, when he 
came to that intersection, he 
turned there. 

It was a Godolfriiian equiva- 
lent of an alley, narrow and dark, 
oily slow-moving water gurgling 
at one side, high cavernous walls 
looming on the other. 

He would have to adjust the 
curiosity factor of Dimanchc. It 
was all very well to be interested 
in the man who trailed him, but 
there was also the problem of 
coming out of this adventure 
alive. Dimanche, an electronic 
instrument, naturally wouldn’t 
consider that. 

“Easy," warned Dimanchc. 
“He’s at the entrance to the alley, 
walking fast. He’s surprised and 
pleased that you took this route,” 
“I’m surprised, too,” remarked 
Cassal. “But I wouldn’t say I’m 
pleased. Not just now.” 

“Careful. Even subvocalized 
conversation is distracting.” The 
mechanism concealed vnthin his 
body was silent for an instant and 
then continued: “His blood pres- 
sure is rising, breathing is faster. 
At a time like this, he may be 
ready to verbalize why he wants 
to murder you. This is critical.” 



“That’s no lie.” agreed Cassal 
bitterly. The lighter was in his 
hand. He clutched it grimly. It 
was difficult not to look back. 
The darkness assumed an even 
more sinister quality. 

“Quiet,” said Dimanche. “He’s 

verbalizing about you.” 

“He’s decided I’m a nice fellow 
after all. He's going to stop and 
ask me for a light.” 

“I don’t think so.” answered 
Dimanche. “He's whispering: 
‘Poor devil. I hate to do it. But 
it's really his life or mine’.” 

“He’s more right than he 
knows. Why all this violence, 
though? Isn’t there any clue?” 
“None at all,” admitted Di- 
manche. “He’s very close. You’d 
better turn around.” 

C ASSAL turned, pressed the 
stud on the lighter. It should 
have made him feel more secure, 
but it didn’t. He could see very 
little. 

A dim shadow rushed at him. 
He jumped away from the water 
side of the alley, barely in time. 
He could feel the rush of air as 
the assailant shot by. 

“Hey!” shouted Cassal. 

Echoes answered: nothing else 
did. He had the uncomfortable 
feeling that no one was goiitg to 
come to his assistance. 

“He wasn’t expecting that re- 
action,” explained Dimanche. 
“That’s why 'he missed. He’* 



BELAY IN TRANSIT 



9 



turtifd around and is coming 
back.” 

'Tm armed!” shouted Cassal. 

“Tlvat won’t stop him. He 
doesn’t believe you.” 

Cassal grasped the lighter. 
That is, it had been a lighter a 
few seconds before. Now a needle- 
thin blade had snapped out and 
projected stiffly. Originally it had 
been designed as an emergency 
surgical instrument. A little 
imagination and a few changes 
had altered its function, convert- 
ing it into a compact, efficient 
stih-Uo, 

‘‘Twenty feet away.” advised 
Dimanche. “He knows you can’t 
sec him, but he can see your 
silhouette by the light from the 
main thoroughfare. What he 
doesn’t know is that I can detect 
eveiy move he makes and keep 
you posted below the level of his 
hearing.” 

‘‘Stay on him.” growled Cassal 
nervously. He flattened himself 
against the wall. 

“To the right,” whispered Di- 
manche. “Lunge forward. About 
five feet. Low.” 

Sickly, he did so. He didn’t 
care to consider the possible ef- 
fects of a miscalculation. !n the 
darkness. Itow far was five feet? 
Fortynately, his estimate was 
c orrect. The rapier encountered 
yielding resistance, the soggy 
kind: flesh. The tough blade bent, 
but did not break. His opponent 



gasped and broke away. 

“Attack!” howled Dimanche 
against the bone behind his ear. 
“You’ve got him. He can’t ima- 
gine how you know where he is 
in the darkness. He’s afraid.” 
Attack he did, slicing about 
wildly. Some of the thrusts 
landed: some didn’t. The percen- 
tage was low, the total amount 
high. His opponent fell to the 
ground, gasped and was silent. 

Cassal fumbled in his pockets 
and flipped on a light. The man 
lay near the water side of the 
alley. One leg was crumpled 
under him. He didn’t move. 

“Heartbeat slow,” said Di- 
manche solemnly. “Breathing 
barely perceptible.” 

“Then he’s not dead,” said 
Cassal in relief. 

Foam flecked from the still 
lips and ran down the chin. Blood 
oozed from cuts on the face. 

“Respiration none, heartbeat 
absent,” stated Dimanche. 

H orrified. Cassai gazed at 
the body. Self-defense, of 
course, but would the police be- 
lieve it? Assuming they did. 
they’d still have to investigate. 
The rapier was an illegal con- 
cealed weapon. And they would 
question him until they discov- 
ered Dimanche. Regrettable, but 
what could he do about It? 

Suppose he were detained long 
enough to miss the ship bound 



10 



GALAXr SCIENCE FICTION 



for Tunney 21? 

Grimly, he laid down the 
rapier. He might as well get to 
the bottom of this. Why had the 
man attacked? What did he 
want? 

“I don’t know,’* replied I>i- 
manche irritably. *'I can inter- 
pret body data — a live body. I 
can’t work on a piece of meat.” 

Cassal searched the body thor- 
oughly. Miscellaneous personal 
articles of no value in identifying 
the man. A clip with a startling 
amount of money in it. A small 
white card with something scrib- 
bled on it. A picture of a woman 
and a small child posed against a 
background which resembled no 
world Cassal had ever seen. That 
was all. 

Cassal stood up in bewilder- 
ment. Dimanche to the contrary, 
there seemed to be no connection 
between this dead man and his 
own problem of getting to Tun- 
ney 21. 

Right now, though, he had to 
dispose of the hody. He glanced 
toward the boulevard. So far no 
one had been attracted by the 
violence. 

He bent down to j’etrieve the 
lighter-rapier. Dimanche shouted 
at him. Before he could react, 
someone landed on him. He fell 
forward, vainly trying to grasp 
the weapon. Strong fingers felt 
for his throat as he was forced 
to the ground. 



He threw the attacker off and 
staggered to his feet. He heard 
footsteps rushing away. A slight 
splash followed. Whoever it was, 
he was escaping by way of water. 

Whoever it was. The man he 
had thought he had slain was no 
longer in sight. 

“Interpret body data, do you?” 
muttered Cassal. “Liveliest dead 
man I’ve ever been strangled by.” 

“It’s just possible there arc 
some breeds of men who can con- 
trol the basic functions of their 
body,” said Dimanche defensive- 
ly. “When I checked him, he had 
noy heartbeat.” 

“Remind me not to accept your 
next evaluation so completely,” 
grunted Cassal. Nevertheless, he 
was relieved, in a fashion. He 
hadn’t wanted to kill the man. 
And now there was nothing he’d 
have to explain to the police. 

He needed the cigarette he 
stuck between his lips. For the 
second time he attempted to pick 
up the rapier-lighter. This time 
he was successful. Smoke swirled 
into his lungs and quieted his 
nerves. He squeezed the weapon 
into the shape of a lighter and 
put it away. 

Something, however, was miss- 
ing— his wallet. 

The thug had relieved him of 
it in the second round of the 
scuffle. Persistent fellow. Damned 
persistent. 

It really didn’t matter. He 



DILAY IN TRANSIT 



11 



fingered the clip he had taken 
from the supposedly dead body. 
He had intended to turn it over 
to the police. Now he might as 
well keep it to reimburse him for 
his loss. It contained more money 
than his wallet had. 

Except for the identification 
tab he always carried in his wal- 
let, it was more than a fair ex- 
change. The identification, a 
rectangular piece of plastic, was 
useful in establishing credit, but 
with the money he now had, he 
wouldn’t need credit. If he did, 
he could always send for another 
tab. 

A white card fluttered from the 
clip. He caught it as it fell. Curi- 
ously he examined it. Blank ex- 
cept for one crudely printed word, 
STAB. His unknown assailant cer- 
tainly had tried. 

^HE old man stared at the 
■■■ door, an obsolete visual pro- 
jector wobbling precariously on 
his*head. He closed his eyes and 
the lettering on the door disap- 
peared. Cassal was too far away 
to see what it had been. The 
technician opened his eyes and 
concentrated. Slowly a new sign 
formed on the door. 

TlUVELKRS AID BlTlEAlf 

Murra Foray, First Counselor 

It was a drab sign, but, then, 
it was a dismal, backward 



planet. The old technician passed 
on to the next door and closed 
his eyes again. 

With a sinking feeling, Cassal 
walked toward the entrance. He 
needed help and he had to find it 
in this dingy rathole. 

Inside, though, it wasn’t dingy 
and it wasn’t a rathole. More like 
a maze, an approved scientific 
one. Efficient, though not com- 
fortable, Travelers Aid was 
busier than he thought it would 
be. Eventually he managed to 
squeeze into one of the many 
small counseling rooms. 

A woman appeared on the 
screen, crisp and cool. “Please 
answer everything the machine 
asks. When the tape is complete, 
I'll be available for consultation.” 

Cassal wasn’t sure he was go- 
ing to like her. “Is this neces- 
sary?” he asked. “It’s merely a 
matter of information.” 

“We have certain regulations 
we abide by.” The woman smiled 
frostily. “I can’t give you any 
information until you comply 
with them.” 

“Sometimes regulations are 
silly,” said Cassal firmly. “Let me 
speak to the first counselor.” 

“You are speaking to her,” she 
said. Her fsfee disappeared from 
the screen. 

Cassal sighed. So far he hadn’t 
made a good impression. 

Travelers Aid Bureau, in addi- 
tion to regulations, was abun- 



12 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



danlly supplied with official 
curiosity. When the machine fin- 
ished with him, Cassal had the 
feeling he could be recreated from 
the record it had of him. His indi- 
viduality had been capsuled into 
a series of questions and answers. 
One thing he drew the line at— 
why he wanted to go to Tunney 
21 was his own business. 

The first counselor reappeared. 
Age, indeterminate. Not. he sup- 
posed, that anyone would be cur- 
ious about it. Slightly taller than 
average, rather on the slender 
side. Face was broad at the brow, 
narrow at the chin and ^ler eyes 
were enigmatic. A dangerous wo- 
man. 

OHE glanced down at the data. 
^ “Denton Cassal. native of 
Earth. Destination, Tunney 21.” 
She looked up at him. “Occupa- 
tion, sales engineer. Isn’t that an 
odd combination?” Her smile was 
quite superior. 

“Not at all. Scientific training 
as an engineer. Special knowledge 
of customer relations.” 

“Special knowledge of a thou- 
sand races? How convenient.” 
Her eyebrow^ arched. 

“I think so,” he agreed bland- 
ly. “Anything else you’d like to 
know?” 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend 
you.” 

He could believe that or not 
as he wished. He didn’t. 



“You refused to answer why 
you were going to Tunney 21. 
Perhaps I can guess. They’re the 
best scientists in the Galaxy. You 
wish to study under them.” 

Close — biit wrong on two 
counts. They were good scientists, 
though not necessarily the best. 
For instance, it was doubtful that 
they could build Diinanche, even 
if they had ever thought of it, 
which was even less likely. 

There was, however, one rela- 
tively obscure research worker on 
Tunney 21 that Neuronics wanted 
on their staff. If the fragments of 
his studies that had reached 
Earth across the vast distance 
meant anything, he could help 
Neuronics perfect instantaneous 
radio. The company that could 
build a radio to span the reaches 
of the Galaxy with no time lag 
could set its own price, which 
could be control of all communi- 
cations, transport, trade — a gal- 
actic monopoly. Cassal’s share 
would be a cut of all that. 

His part was simple, on the 
surface. He was to persuade that 
researcher to come to Earth, if 
he could. Literally, he had to 
guess the Tunnesian’s price be- 
fore the Tunnesian himself knew 
it. In addition, the reputation of 
Tunnesian scientists being ex- 
ceeded only by their arrogance, 
Cassal had to convince him that 
he wouldn’t be working for ig- 
norant Earth savages. The exist- 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



13 



ence of such an instrument as 
Dimanche was a key factor. 

Her voice broke though his 
thoughts. “Now, then, what’s 
your problem?” 

“I Was told on Earth I might 
have to wait a few days on Go- 
dolph. I’ve been here three weeks. 
I want information on the ship 
bound for Tunney 21.” 

“Just a moment.” She glanced 
at something below the angle of 
the screen. She looked up and her 
eyes were grave. “Rickrock C 
arrived yesterday. Departed for 
Tunney early this morning.” 
“Departed?” He got up and 
sat down again, swallowing hard. 
“When will the next ship arrive?” 
“Do you know how many stars 
there are in the Galaxy?” she 
asked. 

didn't answer. 

T HAT’S right,” she said. 
“Billions. Tunney, according 
to the notation, is near the center 
of the Galaxy, inside the third 
ring. You’ve covered about a 
third of the distance to it. Local 
traffic, anything within a thou- 
sand light-years, is relatively easy 
to manage. At longer distances, 
you take 'a chance. You’ve had 
yours and missed it. Frankly, 
Cassal, I don’t know when an- 
other ship bound for Tunney 
will show up on or near Go- 
dolph. Within the next five years 
—maybe.” 



H e blanched. “How long would 
it take to get there using 
local transportation, star - hop- 
ping?” 

“Take my advice: don’t try it. 
Five years, if you’re lucky.” 

“I don’t need that kind of 
luck.” 

“I suppose not.” She hesitated. 
“You’re determined to go on?” 
At the emphatic nod, she sighed. 
“If that’s your decision, we’ll try 
to help you. To start things mov- 
ing, we’ll need a print of your 
identification tab.” 

“There’s something funny 
about her,” Dimanche decided. It 
was the usual speaking voice of 
the instrument, no louder than 
the noise the blood made in cours- 
ing through arteries and veins. 
Cassal could hear it plainly, be- 
cause it was virtually inside his 
ear. 

Cessal ignored his private 
voice. “Identification tab? I don’t 
have it v4th me. In fact, I jnay 
have lost it.” 

She smiled in instant disbelief. 
“We’re not trying to pry into any 
part of your past you may wish 
concealed. However, it’s much 
easier for us to help you if you 
have your identification. Now if 
you can’t remember your real 
name and where you put your 
identification—’*^ She arose and 
left the screen. “Just a moment.” 
He glared uneasily at*the spot 
where the first counselor wasn’t. 



M 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 






His real name? 

“Relax,’* Dimanche suggested. 
“She didn't mean it as a personal 
insult.” 

Presently she returned. 

“I have news for you, whoever 
you are.’* 

“Cassal,” he said firmly. “Den- 
ton Cassal, sales engineer, Earth. 
If you don’t believe it, send back 
to — ” He stopped. It had taken 
him four months to get to Go- 
dolph, non-stop, plus a six-month 
wait on Earth for a ship to show 
up that was bound In the right 
direction. Over distances such as 
these, it just wasn’t practical to 
send back to Earth for anything. 

“I see you understand.” She 
glanced at the card in her hand. 
“The spaceport records indicate 
that when Rickrock C took off 
this morning, there was a Denton 
Cassal on board, bound for Tun- 
ney 21.” 

"It wasn’t I.” he said dazedly. 
He knew who it was, though, The 
man who had tried to kill him 
last night. The reason for the at- 
tack now became clear. The thug 
had wanted his identification tab. 
Worse, he had gotten it. 

“No doubt it wasn’t,” she said 
wearily. “Outsiders don’t seem to 
understand what galactic travel 
entails.” 

Outsiders? Evidently what she 
called those who lived beyond 
the second transfer ring. Were 
those who lived at the edge of 



the Galaxy, beyond the first rifig. 
called Rimmers? Probably. 

S HE was still speaking: “Ten 
years to cross the Galaxy, 
without stopping. At present, no 
ship is capable of that. Real 
scheduling is impossible. Popu- 
lations shift and have to be sup- 
plied. A ship is taken off a run 
for repairs and is never put back 
on. It’s more urgently needed 
elsewhere. The man who de- 
pended on it is left waiting: years 
pass before he learns it's never 
coming. 

“If we had instantaneous radio, 
that would help. Confusion 
wouldn’t vanish overnight, but it 
would diminish. We wouldn’t 
have to depend on ships for all 
the news. Reservations could be 
made ahead of time, credit es- 
tablished. lost identification re- 
placed — ” 

“I’ve traveled before.” he in- 
terrupted stiffly. “I’ve never had 
any trouble.” 

She seemed to be exaggerating 
the difficulties. True, the center 
was more congested. Taking each 
star as the starting point for a 
limited number of ships and using 
statistical probability *as a guide 
— ^why, no man would arrive at 
his predetermined destination. 

But that wasn’t the way it 
worked. Manifestly, you couldn’t 
compare galactic transportation 
to the erratic paths of air mole- 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



1<5 



cules in a giant room. Or could 
you? 

For the average man, anyone 
who didn’t have his own inter- 
stellar ship, was the comparison 
too apt? It might be. 

“’iTou’ve traveled outside, where 
there arc still free planets waiting 
to be settled. Where a man is 
welcome, if he’s able to work.” 
' She paused. “The center is dif- 
ferent. Populations are excessive. 
Inside the third ring, no man is 
allowed off a ship without an 
identification tab. They don’t en- 
courage immigration.” 

In effect, that meant no ship 
bound for the center would take 
a passenger without identification. 
No ship owner would run the 
risk of having a permanent guest 
on board, someone who couldn’t 
be jjd of when his money was 
gone. 

Cassal held his head in his 
hands. Tunney 21 was insieje the 
third ring. 

“Next time.” she said, “don't 
let anyone take your identifica- 
tion.” 

“I won’t,” he promised grimly. 

T he woman looked directly at 
him. Her eyes were bright. 
He revised his estimate of her 
age drastically downward. She 
couldn’t be as old as he. Nothing 
outward had happened, but she 
IK) longer seemed dowdy. Not 
that he was interested. Still, it 



might pay him to be friendly to 
the first counselor. 

“We’re a philanthropic agen- 
cy,” said Murra Foray. “Your 
case is special, though—” 

“I understand,” he said gruffly. • 

“You accept contributions.” 

She needed. “If the donor is 
able to give. We don’t ask so ^ 

much that you'll have to com- * 

promise your standard of living.” 

But she named a sum that would 
force him to do just that if 
getting to Tunney 21 took any 
appreciable time. 

He stared at her unhappily. “I 
suppose it’s worth it. I can al- 
ways work, if I have to.” 

“As a salesman?” she asked. 

“I’m afraid you’ll find it difficult 
to do business with Godolphians.” 

Irony wasn’t called for at a 
time like this, he thought re- 
proachfully. 

“Not just another salesman,” 
he answered definitely. “I have 
special knowledge of customer 
reactions. I can tell exactly — ” 

He stopped abruptly. Was she 
baiting him? For what reason? 

The instrument he called Di- 
manche was not known to the 
Galaxy at large. From the busi- 
ness angle, it would be poor 
policy to hand out that informa- 
tion at random. Aside from that, - 

he needed every advantage he 
could get. Dimanche was his 
special advantage. 

“Anyway,” he finished lamely. 



CAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



^‘I’m a first class engineer. I can 
always find something in that 
line.” 

“A scientist, maybe,” mur- 
mured Murra Foray. “But in this 
part of the Milky Way, an engi- 
neer is regarded as merely a 
technician who hasn’t yet gained 
practical experience.” She shook 
her head. “You’ll do better as a 
salesman.” 

He got up, glowering. “If that’s 
all—” 

“It is. We’ll keep you informed. 
Drop your contribution in the 
slot provided for that purpose as 
you leave.” 

, A door, which he hadn't no- 
ticed in entering the counselling 
cubicle, swung open. The agency 
was efficient. 

“Remember,” the counselor 
called out as he left, “identifica- 
tion is hard to work with. Don’t 
accept a crude forgery.” 

He didn’t answer, but it was 
an idea worth considering. The 
agency was also eminently prac- 
tical. 

The exit path guided him firm- 
ly to an inconspicuous and yet 
inescapable contribution station. 
He began to doubt the philan- 
thropic aspect of the bureau. 

“■T’VE got it,” said Dimanche as 
-*• Cassal gloomily counted out 
the sum the first counselor had 
named. 

“Got what?” asked Cassal. He 



rolled the currencj^ into a neat 
bundle, attached his name, and 
dropped it into the chute. 

“The woman, Murra Foray, 
the first counselor. She's a Hunt- 
ner.” 

“What’s a Huntner?” 

“A sub-race of men on the other 
side of the Galaxy. She was vo- 
calizing about her home planet 
when I managed to locate her.’* 

“Any other information?” 

“None. Electronic gx’ards were 
sliding into place as soon as I 
reached her. I got out as fast as 
I could.” 

“I see.” The significance of 
that, if any, escaped him. Never- 
theless, it sounded depressing. 

“What I want to know is.” said 
Dimanche, “why such precau- 
tions as electronic guards? What 
does Travelers Aid have that’s so 
secret?” 

Cassal grunted and didn’t an- 
swer. Dimanche could be annoy- 
ingly inquisitive at times. 

Cassal had entered one side of 
a block-square building. He came 
out on the other side. The agency 
was larger than he had thought. 
The old man was staring at a 
door as Cassal came out. He had 
apparently changed every sign in 
the building. His work finished, 
the technician was removing the 
visual projector from his head as 
Cassal came up to him. He 
turned and peered. 

“You stuck here, too?” he 

. 17 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



asked in the uneven voice of the 
aged. 

“Stuck?*’ repeated Cassal. "I 
suppose you can call it that. I’m 
waiting for my ship.” He frowned. 
He was the one who wanted to 
ask questions. “Why all the re- 
decoration? I thought Travelers 
Aid was an old agency. Why did 
you change so' many signs? I 
could understand it if the agency 
were new.” 

The old man chuckled. “Re- 
organization. The previous first 
counselor resigned suddenly, in 
the middle of the night, they say. 
The new one didn’t like the name 
of the agency, 'SO she ordered it 
changed.” 

She would do just that, thought 
Cassal. “What about this Murra 
Foray?” 

T^e old man winked mysteri- 
ously. He opened his mouth and 
then seemed overcome with se- 
nile fright. Hurriedly he shuffled 
6way. 

Cassal gazed after him, baf- 
fled. The old man was afraid for 
his job, afraid of the first coun- 
selor. Why he should be, Cassal 
didn’t know. He shrugged and 
went on. The agency was now in 
motion in his behalf, but he didn’t 
intend to depend on that alone. 

“^HE girl ahead of you is mak- 
ing unnecessary wriggling 
motions as she walks,” observed 
Dimanche. “Several men arc 



looking on with approval. I don’t 
understand.” 

Cassal glanced up. They 
walked that way back in good old 
L.A. A pang of homesickness 
swept through him. 

“Shut up,” he growled plain- 
tively. “Attend to the business at 
hand.” 

“Business? Very well,” said Di- 
manche. “Watch out for the 
transport tide.” 

Cassal swerved back from the 
edge of the water, Murra Foray 
had been right. Godolphians 
didn’t want or need his skills, 
at least not on terms that were 
acceptable to him. The natives 
didn't have to exert themselves. 
They lived off the income pro- 
vided by travelers, with which 
the planet was abundantly sup- 
plied by ship after ship. 

Still, that didn't alter his need 
for money. He walked the streets 
at random while Dimanche 
probed, 

“Ah!” 

“What is it?” 

“That man. He crinkles some- 
thing in his hands. Not enough, 
he is subvocalizing.” 

“I know how he feels,” com- 
mented Cassal. 

“Now his throat tightens. He 
bunches his muscles. ‘I know 
where I can get more,’ he tells 
himself. He is going there.” 

“A sensible man,” declared 
Cassal. “Follow him.” 






I 






18 



CALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



Boldly the man headed toward 
a section of the city which Cassal 
had not previously entered. He 
believed opportunity lay there. 
Not for everyone. The shrewd, 
observant, and the courageous 
could succeed if — The word that 
the quarry used was a slang term, 
unfamiliar to either Cassal or Di- 
manche. It didn*t matter as long 
as it led to money. 

Cassal stretched his stride and 
managed to keep the man in 
sight. He skipped nimbly over 
the narrow walkways that curved 
through the great buildings. The 
section grew dingier as they pro- 
ceeded. Not slums; not the show- 
place city frequented by travelers, 
either. 

Abruptly the man turned into 
a building. He was out of sight 
when Cassal reached the struc- 
ture. 

He stood at the entrance and 
stared in disappointment. “Op- 
portunities Inc.,” Dimanche 
quoted softly in his ear. “Science, 
thrills, chance. What does that 
mean?” 

“It means that we followed a 
gravity ghost!” 

“What’s a gravity ghost?” 

“An unexplained phenomena,” 
said Cassal nastily. “It affects the 
instruments of spaceships, giving 
the illusion of a massive dark 
body that isn’t there.” 

“But you’re not a pilot. 1 don’t 
understand.” 



“You’re not a very good pilot 
yourself. We followed the man to 
a gambling joint.” 

“Gambling,” mused Dimanche. 
“Well, isn’t it an opportunity of 
a sort? Someone inside is think- 
ing of the money he’s winning.” 
“The owner, no doubt.” 
Dimanche was silent, investi- 
gating. “It is the owner,” he con- 
firmed finally. “Why not go in, 
anyway. It’s raining. And they 
serve drinks.” Left unstated was 
the admission that Dimanche was 
curious, as usual. 

C ASSAL went in and ordered 
a drink. It was a variable 
place, depending on the spectator 
—bright, cheerful, and harmoni- 
ous if he were winning, garish and 
deprcssingly vulgar if he were not. 
At the moment Cassal belonged 
to neither group. He reserved 
judgment. 

An assortment of gaming de- 
vices were in operation. One in 
particular seemed interesting. It 
involved the counting of electrons 
passing through an aperture, 
based on probability. 

“Not that,” whispered Di- 
manche. “It’s rigged.” 

“But it’s not necessary,” Cassal 
murmured. “Pure chance alone is 
good enough.” 

“They don’t take chances, pure 
or adulterated. Look around. How 
many Godolphians do you see?” 
Cassal looked. Natives were 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



19 



not even there as servants. Strict- 
ly a clip joint, working travelers. 

Unconsciously, h e nodded. 
“That does it. -It’s not the kind 
of opportunity I had in mind.” 

“Don’t be hasty,” objected Di- 
manche. “Certain devices I can’t 
control. There may be others in 
which my knowledge will help 
you. Stroll around and sample 
some games.” 

Cassal equipped himself with 
a supply of coins and sauntered 
through the establishment, dis- 
bursing them so as to give 
him*self the widest possible ac- 
quaintance with the layotit. 

“That one,” instructed Di- 
manche. 

It received a coin. In return, it 
rewarded him with a large shower 
of change. The money spilled to 
the^floor with a satisfying clatter. 
An audience ga'thered rapidly, os- 
tensibly to help him pick up the 
coins.. 

“There was a circuit in it,” 
explained Dimanche. “I gave it a 
shot of electrons and it paid out.” 

“Let’s try it again," suggested 
Cassal. 

“Let’s not." Dimanche said re- 
gretfully. “Look at the man on 
your right.” 

Cassal did so. He jammed the 
money back in his pocket and 
stood up. Hastily, he began 
thrusting the money back into 
the machine. A large and very 
unconcerned man watched him. 



“You get the idea,” said Di- 
manche. “It paid off two months 
ago. It wasn’t scheduled for an- 
other this year.” Dimanche scru- 
tinized the man in a multitude 
of ways while Cassal continued 
play. “He’s satisfied,” was the 
report at last. “He doesn’t detect 
any sign of crookedness.” 
“Crookedness?'" 

“On your part, that is. In the 
ethics of a gambling house, what’s 
done to insure profit is merely 
prudence.” 

T hey moved on to other 
games, though Cassal lost his 
briefly acquired enthusiasm. The 
possibility of winning seemed to 
grow more remote. 

“Hold it,” said Dimanche. 
“Let’s look into this.” 

“Let me give you some advice,” 
said Cassal. “This is one thing we 
can’t win at. Every race in the 
Galaxy has a game like this. 
Pieces of plastic with values 
printed on them are distributed. 
The trick is to get certain arbi- 
trarily selected sets of values in 
the plastics dealt to you. It seems 
simple, but against a skilled 
player a beginner can’t win.” 
“Every race in the Galaxy,” 
mused Dimanche. “What do men 
call it?” '■ 

“Cards,” said Cassal, “though 
there are many varieties within 
that general classification.” He 
launched into a detailed exposi- 



20 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




tion of the subject. If it were 
something he was familiar with, 
all right, but a foreign deck and 
strange rules — 

Nevertheless. Dimanche was in- 
terested. They stayed and ob- 
served. 

The dealer was clumsy. His 
great hands enfolded the cards. 
Not a Godolphian nor quite hu- 
man, he was an odd type, diffi- 
cult to place. Physically burly, 
he wore a garment chiefly re- 
markable for its ill-fitting ap- 
pearance. A hard round hat 



. M 



DELAY IN TKANSIT 



jammed closely over his skull 
completed the outfit. He was 
dressed in a manner that, some- 
where in the Universe, was evi- 
dently considered the height of 
fashion. 

"It doesn’t seem bad.” com- 
mented Cassal. "There might be 
a chance." 

"Look around," said Di- 
manche. "Everyone thinks that. 
It's the classic struggle, person 
against person and everyone 
against the house. Naturally, the 
hou.se doesn't lose.” 

‘‘Th<-n why are wc wasting our 
time?” 

"Because I’ve got an idea.”* 
5«»id Dimanche. “Sit down and 
take a hand.” 

"Make up j'our mind. You said 
the house doesn’t lose.” 

"The house hasn’t played 
agai^t us. Sit down. You get 
tight cards, with the option of 
two more. I’ll tell you what to 
do.’’ 

Cassal waited until a discon- 
solate player relinquished his 

seat and stalked moodily away. 
He played a few hands and bet 
small sums in accordance with 
Dimanche’s instructions. He held 
his own and won in.significanl 
amounts while learning. 

It was simple. Nine orders, or 
suits, of twenty-seven cards each. 
Each suit would build a difTerent 
equation. The lowest hand was a 
quadratic. A cubic would beat it. 



All he had to do was remember 
his math, guess at what he didn’t 
remember, and draw the right 
cards. 

"What's the highest possible 
hand?” asked Dimanche. There 
was a note of abstraction in his 
voice, as if he were paying more 
attention to something else. 

Cassal peeked at the cards that 
were face-down on the table. He 
shoved some money into the bet- 
ting square in front of him and 
didn’t answer. 

“You had it last time," said 
Dimanche. "A three dimensional 
enccphalocurve. A time modulat- 
ed brainwave. If you had bet 
right, you could have owned the 
house by now.” 

"I did? Why didn't yovj tell 
me?" 

"Because you had it three suc- 
cessive times. The probabilities 
against that are astronomical. 
I’ve got to find out what’s hap- 
pening before you start betting 
recklessly." ^ 

"It’s not the dealer." declared 
Cassal. "Look at those hands." 

They were huge hands, more 
suitable, seemingly, for crushing 
the life from some alien beast 
than the delicate manipulation 
of cards. Cassal continued to play, 
betting brilliantly by the only 
standard that mattered: he won. 

O NE player dropped out and 
was replaced by a recruit 



32 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



from the surrounding crowd. 
Cassal ordered a drink. The 
waiter was placing it in his hand 
when Dimanche made a discov- 
ery. 

‘Tve got it!" 

A shout from Dimanche was 
roughly equivalent to a noiseless 
kick in the head. Cassal dropped 
the drink. The player next to him 
scowled but said nothing. The 
dealer blinked and went on deal- 
ing. 

"What have you got?" asked 
Cassal, wiping up the mess and 
trying to keep track of the cards. 

"How he fixes the deck," ex- 
plained Dimanche in a lower and 
less painful tone. “Clever." 

Muttering, Casual shoved a bet 
in front of him. 

"Look at that hat,” said Di- 
manche. 

"Ridiculous, isn’t it? But -I see 
no reason to gloat because I have 
better taste." 

"That’s not what I meant. It’s 
pulled down low over his knobby 
ears and touches his jacket. His 
jacket rubs against his trousers, 
which in turn come in cohtact 
with the stool on which he sits." 

"True," agreed Cassal, increas- 
ing his wager. “But except for his 
physique. I don’t see anything 
unusual." 

"It’s a circuit, a visual pro- 
jeettfr broken down into compo- 
nents. The hat is a command 
circuit which makes contact, via 



his clothing, with the broadcast- 
ing unit built into the chair. The 
existence of a visual projector is 
completely concealed.” 

Cassal bit his lip and squinted 
at his cards. “Interesting. What 
does it have to do with any- 
thing?" 

"The deck," exclaimed Di- 
manche excitedly. "The backs 
are regular, printed with an intri- 
cate design. The front is a special 
plastic, susceptible to the influ- 
ence of the visual projector. He 
doesn’t need manual dexterity. 
He can make any value appear 
on any card he wants. It will stay 
there until he changes it." 

Cassal picked up the cards. 
"IVc got a Loreenaroo equation. 
Can he change that to anything 
else?" 

"He can, but he doesn’t work 
that way. He decides before he 
deals who's going to get what. 
He concentrates on each card as 
he deals it. He can change a hand 
after a player gets it, but it 
wouldn’t look good." 

"It wouldn’t.” Cassal wistfully 
watched the dealer rake in his 
wager. His winnings were gone, 
plus. The newcomer to the game 
won. 

He started to get up. "Sit 
down.” whispered Dimanche. 
"We’re just beginning. Now that 
we know what he does and how 
he does it, we’re going to take 
him.” 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



2t 



T he next hand started in the 
familiar pattern, two cards of 
fairly good possibilities, a bet, 
and then another card. Cassal 
watched the dealer closely. His 
clumsiness was only superficial. 
At no time were the faces of the 
cards visible. The real skill was 
unobservable, of course — the swift 
bookkeeping that went on in his 
mind. A duplication in the hands 
of the players, for instance, would 
be ruinous. 

Cassal received the last card. 
“Bet high,” said Dimanche. With 
trepidation, Cassal shoved the 
money into the betting area. 

The dealer glanced at his hand 
and started to sit down. Abruptly 
he stood up again. He scratched 
his cheek and stared puzzledly 
at the players around him. Gently 
he lowered himself onto the stool. 
Tlw contact was even briefer. He 
stood up in indecision. An im- 
patient murmur arose. He dealt 
himself a card, looked at it, and 
paid off all the way around. The 
players buzzed with curiosity. 

“What happened?” asked Cas- 
sal as the next hand started. 

‘T induced a short in the 
circuit.” said Dimanche. ‘‘He 
couldn’t sit down to change the 
last card he got. He took a 
chance, as he had to, and dealt 
himself a card, anyway.” 

"But he paid off without ask- 
ing to see what we had.” 

“It was the only thing he could 



do,” explained Dimanche. “He 
had duplicate cards.” 

The dealer was scowling. He 
didn’t seem quite so much at 
ease. The cards were dealt and 
the betting proceeded almost as 
usual. True, the dealer was ner- 
vous. He couldn’t sit down and 
stay down. He was sweating. 
Again he paid off. Cassal won 
heavily and he was not the only 
one. 

The crowd around them grew 
almost in a rush. There is an 
indefinable sense that tells one 
gambler when another is winning. 

This time the dealer stood up. 
His leg contacted the stool occa- ^ 
sionally. He jerked it away each 
time he dealt to himself. At the 
last card he hesitated. It was 
amazing how much he could 
sweat. He lifted a corner of the 
cards. Without indicating what 
he had drawn, determinedly and 
deliberately he sat down. The 
chair broke. The dealer grinned 
weakly as a waiter brought him 
another stool, 

“They still think it may be a 
defective circuit,” whispered Di- 
manche. 

The dealer sat down and 
sprang up from the new chair 
in one motion. He gazed bitterly 
at the players and paid them. 

"He had a blank hand,” ex- 
plained Dimanche. "He made 
contact with the broadcasting 
circuit long enough to erase, but 



24 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



not long enough to put anything 
in itfe place.” 

The dealer adjusted his coat. 
••I have a nervous disability,” he 
declared thickly. “If you'll par- 
don me for a few minutes while 
1 take a treatment — ” 

“Probably going to consult 
with the manager,” observed Cas- 
sal. 

“He is the manager. He’s talk- 
ing with the owner.” 

“Keep ti'ack of him.” 

A blonde, pretty, perhaps even 
Earth - type human, smiled 
and wriggled closer to Cassal. He 
smiled back. 

“Don’t fall for it,” warned Di- 
manche. “She’s an undercover 
agent for the house.” 

Cassal looked her over care- 
fully. “Not much under cover.” 
“But if she should discover — ” 
“Don’t be stupid. She’ll never 
guess you exist. There’s a small 
lump behind my ear and a small 
round tube cleverly concealed 
elsewhere.” 

“All right,” sighed Dimanche 
resignedly. “I suppose people will 
always be a mystery to me.” 
The dealer reappeared, fol- 
lowed by an unobtrusive man 
who carried a new stool. The 
dealer looked subtly different, 
though he was the same person. 
It took a close inspection to de- 
termine what the difference was. 
His clothing was new, unrum- 



pled, unmarked by perspiration. 
During his brief absence, he had 
been furnished with new visual 
projector equipment, and it had 
been thoroughly checked out. 
The house intended to locate the 
source of the disturbance. 

Mentally, Cassal counted his 
assets. He was solvent again, but 
in other ways his position was 
not so good. 

“Maybe,” he suggested, “we 
should leave. With no further in- 
terference from us, they might 
believe defective equipment is 
the cause of their losses.” 

“Maybe,” replied Dimanche, 
“you think the crowd around us 
is composed solely of patrons?” 
“I see,” said Cassal soberly. 
He stretched Iiis legs. The 
crowd pressed closer, uncommon- 
ly aggressive and ill-tempered 
for mere spectators. He decided 
against leaving. 

“Let’s resume play.” The deal- 
er-manager smiled blandly at 
each player. He didn’t suspect 
any one person — yet. 

“He might be using an honest 
deck,” said Cassal hopefully. 

“They don’t have that kind,” 
answered Dimanche. He added 
absently; “During his conference 
with the owner, he was given 
authority to handle the situation 
in any way be sees fit.” 

Bad. but not too bad. At least 
Cassal was opposing someone 
who had authority to kt him 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



25 



k'j*p his winnings, if he could be 
convinced. 

The dealer deliberately sat 
down on the stool. Testing. He 
could endure the charge that 
trickled through him. The bland 
smile spread into a triumphant 
one. 

“While he was gone, he took a 
sedative,” analyzed Dimanchc. 
“He also had the strength of the 
broadcasting circuit reduced. He 
thinks that will do it.” 

“Sedatives wear off.” said Cas- 
sal. “By the time he knows it’s 
me. see that it has worn off. Mess 
him up.” 

T he game went on. The situa- 
tion was too much for the 
others. They played poorly and 
bet atrociously, on purpose. One 
by one they lost and dropped out. 
Thcy^ wanted badly to win. but 
they wanted to live even more. 

The joint was jumping, and so 
was the dealer again. Sweat 
rolled down his face and there 
were tears in his eyes. So much 
liquid began to erode his ffxed 
smile. He kept replenishing it 
from some irmer source of deter- 
mination. 

Caesal looked up. The crowd 
had drawn back, or had been 
forced back by hirelings who 
mingled with them. He was alone 
with the dealer at the table. 
Money was piled high around 
him. It was more than he needed. 



more than he wanted. 

“i suggest one last hand.” said 
the dealer - manager, grimacing. 
It sounded a little stronger than a 
suggestion. 

Cassal nodded. 

“For a sub^antial sum.” said 
the dealer, naming it. 

Miraculously, it was an amount 
that equaled everything Cassal 
had. Again Cassal nodded.^ 
“Pressure,” muttered Cassal to 
Dimanche. “The sedative has 
worn off. He's back at the level 
at which he started. Fry him if 
you have to.” 

The cards came out slowly. 
The dealer was jittering as he 
dealt. Soft music was lacking, but 
not the motions that normally 
accompanied it. Cassal Couldn’t 
believe that cards could be so 
bad. Somehow the dealer was ris- 
ing to the occasion. Rising and 
sitting. 

“There’s a nerve in your body,” 
Cassal began conversationally, 
“which, if were overloaded, 
would cause you to drop dead.” 
The dealer didn’t examine his 
cards. He didn’t have to. “In that 
event, someone would be arrested 
for murder,” he said. “You.” 
That was the wrong tack: the 
humanoid had too much courage. 
Cassal pasai^d his hand over his 
eyes. “You can’t do this to men. 
but, strictly speaking, the dealer’s 
not human. Try suggestion on 
him. Make him change the cards. 



GALAXY SCIENCE .FICTION 



Play him likf a piano. Pizzicato 
on the nerve strings.” 

Dimanche didn't answer: pre- 
sumably he was busy scrambling 
the circuits. 

The dealer stretched out his 
hand. It never reached the cards. 
Danger: Dimanche at work. The 
smile dropped from his face. 
What remained was pure an- 
guish. He was loo dry- /or tears. 
Smoke curled up faintly from his 
jacket, 

“Hot. isn’t it?” asked Cassal. 
“It might be cooler if you took off 
your cap.” 

The cap tinkled to the floor. 
The mechanism in it was des- 
troyed. What the cards were, they 
were. Now they couldn't be 
changed. 

“That’s better," said Cassal. 

'1'1'E glanced at his hand. In the 
interim, it had changed 
slightly. Dimanche had got there. 

The dealer examined his cards 
one by one. His face changed 
color. He sat utterly still on a 
cool stool. 

“You win." he said hopelessly. 

“Let's see what you have.'* 

The dealer • manager roused 
himself. “You won. That's good 
enough for you. isn’t it?” 

Cassal shrugged. “You have 
Bank of the Galaxy service here. 
I’ll deposit my money with them 
be/ofe you pick up your cards.” 

The dealer nodded unhappily 



and summoned an assistant. The 
crowd, which had anticipated vio- 
lence. slowly began to drift away. 

“What did you do?” asked Ces- 
sal silently. 

“Men have no .shame,” sighed 
Dimanche. “Some humanoids do. 
The dealer was one who did. I 
forced him to project onto bis 
cards something that wasn’t a suit 
at all.” 

“Embarrassing if that got out.” 
agreed Ca.ssal. “What did you 
project ?” 



Dimanche told him. Cassal 
blushed, which was unusual for ' 



a man. 

The dealer - manager returned 
and the transaction was com- 
pleted. His money was safe in 
the Bank of the Galaxy. 

“Hereafter, you’re not wel- 
come,” said the dealer mofc»s<Iy. 
“Don’t come back." 

Cassal picked up the carels 
without looking at them. "And no 
accidents after I leave.” he said, 
extending the cards face-down. 
The manager took them and 
trembled. 

‘‘He’s an honorable humanoid, 
in his own way.” whispered Di- 
manchc. “I think you’re safe." 

It was time to leave. “One 
question.” Cassal called back. 
“What do you call this game?” 

Automatically the dealer 
started to answer. “Why every- 
one knows . . He sat down, bis 
mouth open. 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



■ 27 



It was more than time to leave. 

Outside, he hailed an air taxi, 
point in tempting the man- 
agement. 

“Look.” said Dimanche as the 
cab rose from the surface of the 
transport tide. 

A technician with a visual pro- 
jector was at work on the sign 
in front of the gaming house. 
Huge words took shape: warn- 

mr NO TELEPATHS ALLOWED, 

There were no such things any- 
where. but now there were ru- 
mors of them. 

v" A RRIVING at the habitat wing 
of the hotel. Cassal went di- 
rectly to his room. He awaited 
the delivery of the equipment he 
had ordered and checked through 
it thoroughly. Satisfied that ev- 
erything was there, he estimated 
^he of the room. Too small* 
for his purpose. 

He picked up the intercom and 
dialed Ser^ces. “Put a Life Stage 
Cordon around my suite,” he said 
briskly. 

The face opposite his went 
blank. “But you’re an Earthman. 
I thought — ” 

“I know more about my own 
requirements than your Life 
Stage Bureau. Earthmen do have 
I'Se stages. You know the penalty 
4f you refuse that service.” 

There were some races who 
went without sleep for five 
months and then had to make up 



for it. Others grew vestigial wings 
for brief periods and had to fly 
with them or die : reduced gravity 
would suflfice for that. Still 
others — 

But the one common feature 
was always a critical time in 
which certain conditions were 
necessary. Insofar as there was a 
universal law, from one end of 
the Galaxy to the other, this was 
it: The habitat hotel had to fur- 
nish appropriate conditions for 
the maintenance of any life-form 
that requested it. 

The Godolphian disappeared 
from the screen. When he came 
back, lie seemed disturbed. 

“Yqu spoke of a suite. I find 
that you’re listed as occupying 
one room.” 

“I am. It’s too small. Convert 
the rooms around me into a 
suite.” 

“That’s very expensive.” 

“I’m aware of that. Check the 
Bank of the Gala.xy for my credit 
rating.” 

He watched the process take 
place. Service would be amazing- 
ly good from now on. 

“Your suite will be converted 
in about two hours. The Life 
Stage Cordon will begin as soon 
after that as you want. If you 
tell me how long you’ll need it, 
I can make arrangements now.” 

“About ten hours is all I’ll 
need.” Cassal rubbed his jaw re- 
flectively. “One more thing. Put 



2 « 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



a perpetual service at the space- 
port. If a ship comes in bound for 
Tunney 21 or the vicinity of it, 
get accommodations on it for me. 
And hold it until I get ready, no 
matter what it costs.” 

He flipped oft' the intercom and 
promptly went to sleep. Hours 
later, he was awakened by a faint 
hum. The Life Stage Cordon had 
just been snapped safely around 
his newly created suite. 

“Now what?” asked Dimanche. 
“I need an identification tab.” 
“You do. And forgeries are ex- 
pensive and generally crude, as 
that Huntner woman, Murra 
Foray, observed.” 

/VASSAL glanced at the equip- 
^ men. “Expensive, yes. Not 
crude when we 'do it,” 

‘'We forge it?” Dimanche was 
incredulous. 

“That’s what 1 said. Consider 
it this way. I’ve seen my tab a 
rt)untless number of times. If I 
tried to draw it as I remember 
it, it would be inept and wouldn’t 
pass. Nevertheless, that memory 
is in my mind, recorded in neu- 
ronic chains, exact and accurate.’* 
He paused significantly. “You 
have access to that memory.” 
“At least partially. But what 
good does that do?” 

“Visual projector and plastic 
which will take the imprint. I 
think hard about the identifica- 
tion as I remember it.- You record 



and feed it back to me while I 
concentrate on projecting it on 
the plastic. After we get it down, 
we change the chemical composi- 
tion of the plastic. It will then 
pass everything except destruc- 
tive analysis, and they don’t often 
do that.” 

Dimanche was silent. “Ingen- 
ious,” was its comment. “Part of 
that we can manage, the official 
engraving, even the electron 
stamp. That, however, is *gross 
detail. The print of the brain area 
is beyond our capacity. We can 
put down what you remember, 
and you remember what you saw. 
You didn't see fine enough, 
though. The general area will be 
recognizable, but not the fine 
structure, nor the charges stored 
there nor their interrelationship.” 

“But we’ve got to do it.” Ca.s- 
sal insisted, pacing about ner- 
vously. 

“With more equipment to 
probe — ” 

“Not a chance. I got one Life 
Stage Cordon on a bluff. If I ask 
for another, they’ll look it up and 
refuse.” 

“All right,” said Dimanche, 
humming. The mechanical at- 
tempt at music made Cassal’s 
head ache. ‘T've got an idea. 
Think about the identificaticn 
tab.” 

Cassal thought. 

“Enough,” said Dimanche. 
“Now poke yourself.” 



DELAY IN IRANSIT 




’ “Where?” 

“EVferywhere,” replied Di- 
manche irritably. "One place at 
a time.” 

Cassal did so, though it soon 
became monotonous. 

Dimanche stopped him. “Just 
above your right knee.” 

“What above my right knee?” 

“The principal access to that 
part of your brain we’re con- 
cerned with,” said Dimanche. 
**We can’t photomeasure your 
brain the way it was originally 
done, but we can investigate it 
remotely. The results will be sim- 
plified, naturally. Something like 
a scale model as compared to the 

ao 



original. A more apt comparison 
might be that of a relief map to 
an actual locality.” 

“Investigate it remotely?” mut- 
tered Cassal. A horrible suspicion 
touched his consciousness. He 
jerked away from that touch. 
“What docs that mean?” 

“What it sounds like. Stimulus 
and response. From that I can 
construct an accurate chart of 
the proper portion of your brain. 
Our- probing instruments will be 
crude out of necessity, but effec- 
tive.” 

“I've already visualized those 
probing instruments,” said Cas- 
sal worriedly. “Maybe we’d bet- 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



ter work first on the official 
engraving and the electron stamp, 
while I’m still fresh. I have a 
feeling . . 

“Excellent suggestion,” said Di- 
roanche. 

Cassal gathered the articles 
slowly. His lighter would bum 
and it would also cut. He needed 
a heavy object to pound with. A 
violent irritant for the nerve end- 
ings. Something to freeze his 
Hesh . . . 

Dimanche interrupted: “There 
arc also a few glands we’ve got to 
pick up. See if there’s a stimi in 
the room.” 

“Stimi? Oh yes, a stimulator. 
Never use the damned things.” 
But he was going to. The next few 
hours weren’t going to be pleas- 
ant. Nor dull, either. 

Life could be difficult on Go- 
dolph. 

A S soon as the Life Stage Cor- 
don came down, Cassal called 
for a doctor. The native looked at 
him professionally. 

“Is this a part of the Earth 
life process?” he asked incredu- 
lously. Gingerly, he touched the 
swollen and lacerated leg. 

Cassal nodded wearily. “A 
matter of life and death,” he 
croaked. 

“If it is, then it is,” said the 
doctor, shaking his head. “I, for 
one. am glad to be a Godolphian.” 

“To each his own habitat,” 



Cassal quoted the motto of the 
hotel. 

Godolphians were clumsy, good- 
natured caricatures ef seals. 
There was nothing wrong with 
their medicine, however. In a 
matter of minutes he was feeling 
better. By the time the doctor 
left, the swelling had subsided 
and the open wounds were fast 
closing. 

Eagerly, he examined the iden- 
tification tab. As far as he could 
tell, it was perfect. Wl\at the 
scanner would reveal was, of 
course, another matter. He had to ' 
cheek that as best he could with-" 
out exposing himself. 

Services came up to the suite 
right after he laid the intercom 
down. A machine was placed over 
his head and the identification 
slipped into the slot. The code 
on the tab was noted; the 
machine hunted and found the 
corresponding brain area. Struc- 
ture was mapped, impulses re- 
corded, scrambled, converted into 
a ray of light which danced over 
a film. 

The identification tab was sim- 
ilarly recorded. There was now a 
means of comparison. 

Fingerprints cou’d be dupli- 
cated — that is, if the race in 
question had fingers. Every in- 
telligence, however much it dif- 
fered from its neighbors, had a 
brain, and tampering with that 
brain was easily detected. Each 



OfLAY IN TRANSIT 



31 






identification tab carried a psy- 
chometric number which corres- 
ponded to the total personality. 
Alteration of any part of the 
brain could only subtract from 
personality index. 

The technician removed the 
identification and gave it to Cas- 
sal. “Where shall I send the 
strips?” 

“You don’t," said Cassal. “I 
have a private message to go with 
them.” 

“But that will invalidate the 
process.” 

“I know. This isn’t a formal 
contract.” 

Removing the two strips and 
handing them to Cassal, the tech- 
nician wheeled the machine away. 
After due thought, Cassal com- 
posed the message. 

Travelers Aid Bureau 
Wurra Foray, first counselor: 

If you were considering another 
identification tab for me, don't. As 
you can SM, I’ve located the missing 
item. 

He attached the message to 
the strips and dropped them into 
the communication chute. 

TTE was wiping his whiskers 
away when the answer came. 
Hastily he finished and wrapped 
himself, noting but not approving 
the amused glint in her eyes as 
she watched. His morals were his 
own, wherever he went. 



“Denton. Cassal,” she said. “A 
wonderful job. The two strips 
were in register within one per 
cent The best previous forgery 
I’ve seen was six per cent, and 
that was merely a lucky accident. 
It couldn’t be duplicated. Let me 
congratulateyou.’' 

His dignity was professional. 
“I wish you weren’t so fond of 
that word ‘forgery.’ I told you I 
mislaid the tab. As soon as I 
found it, I sent you proof. I want 
to get to Tunney 21. I’m willing 
to do anything I can to speed up 
the process.” 

Her laughter tinkled. “You 
don’t have to tell me how you did 
it or where you got it. I’m in- 
clined to think you made it. You 
understand that I'm not con- 
cerned with legality as such. 
From time to time the agency 
has to furnish missing docu- 
ments. If there’s a better way 
than we have, I’d like to kno.w 
it.” 

He sighed and shook his head. 
For some reason, his heart was 
beating fast. He wanted to say 
more, but there was nothing to 
say. 

When he failed to respond, she 
leaned toward him. “Perhaps 
you’ll discuss this with m". At 
greater length.” 

“At the agency?” 

She looked at him in surprise. 
“Have you been sleeping? The 
agency is closed for the day. The 



32 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



first counselor can’t work all 
the time, you know.” 

Sleeping? He grimaced at the 
remembrance of the self-admin- 
istered beating. No, he hadn’t 
been sleeping. He brushed the 
thought aside and boldly named 
a place. Dinner was acceptable. 

Dimanche waited until the 
screen was dark. The words were 
carefully chosen. 

"Did you notice,” he asked, 
"that there was no apparent 
change in clotliing and makeup, 
yet she seemed younger, more 
attractive?” 

"I didn’t think you could trace 
her that far.” 

"I can’t. I looked at her 
through your eyes.” 

"Don't trust my reaction." ad- 
vised Cassal. "It's likely to be 
subjective.” 

"I don’t," answered Dimanche. 
"It is.” 

Cassal hummed thoughtfully. 
Dimanche was a business neuro- 
logical instrument. It didn’t fol- 
low that it was an expert in 
human psychology. 

^ASSAL stared at the woman 
^ coming toward him. Center- 
of-the-Galaxy fashion. Decadent, 
of course, or maybe ultra-civil- 
i2ed. As an Outsider, he wasn’t 
sure which. Whatever it was. it 
did to the humaq body what 
^should have been done long ago. 

And this body wasn’t exactly 



human. The subtle skirt of pro- 
portions betrayed it as an offshoot 
or deviation from the human race. 
Some of the new sub - races 
stacked up against the original 
stock much in tha^same way Cro- 
Magnons did against Neander- 
thals, in beauty, at least. 

Dimanche spoke a single syl- 
lable and subsided, an event 
Cassal didn't notice. His con- 
sciousness was focused on an- 
other discovery: the woman was 
Murra Foray. 

He knew vaguely that the first 
counselor was not necessarily 
what she had seemed that first 
time at the agency. That she was 
capable of such a metamorphosis 
was hard to believe, though 
pleasant to accept. His attitude 
must have shown on his face. 

"Please," said Murra Foray. 
"I’m a Huntmr. We’re adept at 
camouflage.” 

"Huntner,” he repeated blank- 
ly. "I knew that. But what’s a 
Huntner?” 

She wrinkled her lovely nose 
at the question. ‘T didn’t expect 
you to ask that. I won’t answer 
it now.” She came closer. "I 
thought you’d ask which was the 
camouflage — the person you see 
here, or the one at the Bureau?" 

He never remembered the re- 
ply he made. It must have been 
satisfactory, for she smiled and 
drew her fragile wrap closer. The 
reservations were waiting. 



DELAY IN TKANSIT 



33 



Dtmanche seized the oppor- 
tunity to speak. “There’s some- 
thing phony about her. I don’t 
understand it and I don’t like it.” 
“You,” said Cassal. “are a 
machine. You don’t have to like 
it.” ' 

“That’s what I mean. You have 
to like it. You have no choice.” 
JVIurra Foray looked back 
questioningly. Cassal hurried to 
her side. 

The evening passed swiftly. 
Food that he ate and didn’t 
taste. Music he heard and didn’t 
listen to. Geometric light fugues 
that were seen and not observed. 
Liquor that he drank — and here 
the sequence ended, in the com- 
plicated chemistry of Godolphian 
stimulants. 

Cassal reacted to that smooth 
liquid, though his physical reac- 
tion! were not slowed. Certain 
mental centers were depressed, 
others left wide open, subject to 
acceleration at whatever speed he 
dv-manded. 

Murra Foray, in his eyes at 
least, might look like a dream, the 
kind men have and never talk 
about. She was. however, inter- 
e*'.ed solely in her work, or so it 
seemed. 

ODOLPH is a nice place.” 
she said, toying with a 
drink, “if you like rain. The na- 
tives seem happy enough. But the 
Galaxy is big and there are lots 



of strange planets in it, each of 
which seems ideal to those who 
are adapted to it, I don’t have 
to tell you what happens when 
people travel. They get stranded. 
It’s not the time spent in actual 
flight that’s important: It’s wait- 
ing for the right ship to show up 
and then having all the necessary 
documents. Believe me, that can 
be important, as you found out.” 

He nodded. He had. 

“That’s the origin of Travelers 
Aid Bureau.” she continued. “A 
loose organization, propagated 
mainly by example. Sometimes 
it’s called Star Travelers Aid. It 
may have other names. The aim, 
however, is always the same: to 
see that stranded persons get 
where they want to go.” 

She looked at him wistfully, 
appealingly, “That’s why I’m in- 
terested in your method of cre- 
ating identification tabs. It's the 
thing most commonly lost. 
Stolen, if you prefer the truth.” 

She seemed to anticipate his 
question. “How can anyone use 
another’s identification? It can be 
done under certain circumstances. 
By neural lobotomy, a portion of 
one brain may be made to match, 
more or less exactly, the code 
area of another brain. The person 
operated 6'n suffers a certain loss 
of function, of course. How great 
that loss is depends on the de- 
gree of similarity between the 
two brain areas before the opera- ^ 



34 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



tion took place.” 

She ought to know, and he was 
inclined to believe her. Still, it 
didn’t sound feasible. 

“You haven’t accounted for 
the psychometric index,” he said. 

“I thought you’d see it. That’s 
diminished, too.” 

Logical enough, though not a 
pretty picture. A genius could al- 
ways be made into an average 
man or lowered to the level of an 
idiot. There was no operation, 
however, that could raise an idiot 
to the level of a genius. 

The scramble for the precious 
identification tabs went on. from 
the higher to the lower, a game 
of musical chairs with grim over- 
tones. 

She smiled gravely. “You 
haven’t answered my implied 
question.” 

The company that employed 
him wasn’t .anxious to let the 
secret of Dimanche get out. They 
didn’t sell the instrument; they 
made it for their own use. IJ was 
an advantage over their competi- 
tors they intended to keep. Even 
on his recommendation, they 
wouldn’t sell to the agency. 

Moreover, it wouldn't help 
Travelers Aid Bureau if they did. 
Since she was first counselor, it 
was probable that she’d be the 
one to use it. She couldn’t make 
identification for anyone except 
herself, and then only if she de- 
veloped exceptional skill. 



The alternative was to surgery 
it in and out of whoever needed 
it. When that happened, secrecy 
was gone. Travelers couldn't be 
trusted. 

TTE shook his head. “It’s an ap- 
pealing idea, but I’m afraid 
I can’t help you.” 

‘‘Meaning you won’t.” 

This was intriguing. Now it 
was the agency, not he, who 
wanted help. 

“Don’t overplay it,” cautioned 
Dimanche, who had been con- 
sistently silent. 

She leaned forward attentively. 
He experienced an uneasy mo- 
ment. Was it possible she had 
noticed his private conversation? 
Of course not. Yet — 

“Please,” she said, and the tone 
allayed his fears, “There’s an 
emergency situation and I’ve got 
to attend to it. Will you go with 
me?” She smiled understandingly 
at his quizzical expression. “Trav- 
elers Aid is always having 
emergencies.” 

She was rising. “It’s too late to 
go to the Bureau. My place has 
a number of machines with which 
I keep in touch with the space- 
port.” 

“I wonder,” said Dimanche 
puzzledly. “She doesn’t subvo- 
calize at all. I haven’t been able 
to get a line on her. I’m certain 
she didn’t receive any sort of call. 
Be careful. 



0iLAY IN TRANSIT 



35 



**This might be a trick.” 
“Interesting,” said Cassal. He 
wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. 

Her habitation was luxurious, 
though Cassal wasn’t impressed. 
Liixury was found everywhere in 
the Universe. Huntner women 
weren’t. He watched as she ad- 
justed the machines grouped at 
one side of the room. She spoke 
in a low voice; he couldn’t dis- 
tinguish words. She actuated 
levers, pressed buttons: impedi- 
mf- iita of communication. 

At last she finished. “I’m tired. 
Win you wait till I change?” 
Inarticulately, he nodded. 

“I think her ‘emergency’ was a 
fake,” said Dimanche flatly as 
soon as she left. ‘Tm positive she 
wa'in’t operating the communica- 
tor. She merely went through the 
motifs.” 

“Motions,” murmured Cassal 
dreamily, leaning back. “And 
what motions.” 

''‘I’ve been watching her,” said 
Dimanche. “She frightens me.” 
“I’ve been watching her, too. 
Maybe in a different way.” 

“Get out of here while you 
can.” warned Dimanche. “She’s 
dangerous.” 

1^ OMENTARILY. Cassal con- 
sidered it. Dimanche had 
never failed him. He ought to 
follow that advice. And yet there 
was another explanation. 

“Look,” said Cassal. “A ma- 



chine is a machine. But among 
humans there are men and wo- 
men. What seems dangerous to 
you may be merely a pattern of 
normal behavior . , .” He broke 
off. Murra Foray had entered. 

Strictly from the other side of 
the Galaxy, which she was. A 
woman can be slender and still 
be womanly beautiful, without 
being obvious about it. Not that 
Murra disdained the obvious, 
technically. But he could see 
through technicalities. 

The tendons in his hands ached 
and his mouth was dry, though 
not with fear. An urgent ringing 
pounded in his ears. He shook it 
out of his head and got up. 

She came to him. 

The ringing was still in his 
ears. It wasn’t a figment of imagi- 
nation; it was a real voice — that 
of Dimanche, howling: 

“Huntner! It's a word variant. 
In their language it means Hunt- 
er. She can hear me/” 

“Hear you?” repeated Cassal 
vacantly. 

She was kissing him. 

“A descendant of carnivores. 
An audio - sensitive. She’s been 
listening to you and me all the 
time.” 

“Of course I have, ever since 
the first interview at the bureau.” 
said Murra. “In the beginning I 
couldn’t see what value it was, 
but you convinced me.” She laid 
her hand gently over his eyes. “I 



3 ^ 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



hate to do this to you. dear, but 
I’ve got to have Dimanclie.” 

She had been smothering him 
with caresses. Now, deliberately, 
she began smothering him in ac- 
tuality. 

Cassal had thought he was an 
athlete. For an Eaithman, he 
was. Murra Foray, however, was 
a Huntner, which meant hunter — 
a descendant of incredibly strong 
carnivores. 

He didn’t have a chance. He 
knew that when he couldn’t 
budge her hands and he fell into 
the airless blackness of space. 

A LONE and naked, Cassal 
awakened. He wished he 
hadn’t. He turned over and, 
though he tried hard not to. 
promptly woke up again. His 
body was willing to sleep, but his 
mind was panicked and dis- 
turbed. About what, he wasn’t 
sure. 

He sat up shakily and held 
his roaring head in his hands. He 
ran aching fingers through his 
hair. He stopped. The lump be- 
hind his car was gone. 

“Dimanchc!” he called, and 
looked at his abdomen. 

There was a thin scar, healing 
visibly before his eyes. 

"Dimanchc!” he cried again. 
"Dimanche!" 

There was no answer. Di- 
manche was no longer with him. 

He staggered to his feet and 



stared at the wall. She’d been 
kind enough to return him to his 
own rooms. At length he gathered 
enough strength to rummage 
through his belongings. Nothing 
was missing. Money, identifica- 
tion — all were there. 

He could go to the police. He 
grimaced as he thought of it. The 
neighborly Godolphian police 
were hardly a match for the 
Huntner; she’d fake them out of 
their skins. 

He couldn’t prove she’d taken 
DImanche. Nothing else normally 
considered valuable was missing. 
Besides, there might even be a 
local prohibition against Di- 
manche. Not by name, of course; 
but they could dig up an ancient 
ordinance — invasion of privacy 
or something like that. Anything 
would do if it gave them an op- 
portunity to confiscate the device 
for intensive study. 

For the police to believe his 
story was the worst that could 
happen. They might locate Di- 
manchc, but he’d never get it. 

He smiled bitterly and the ef- 
fort hurt. “Dear," she had called 
him as she had strangled and 
beaten him into unconsciousness. 
Aft(hTvard singing, very likely, as 
she had sliced the little instru- 
ment out of him. 

He could picture her not very 
remote ancestors springing from 
cover and overtaking a fleeing 
herd— 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



37 



No use pursuing that ling of 
thouglit. 

Why did she want Dimanche? 
She had hinted that the agency 
wasn’t always concerned with 
legality as such. He could believe . 
her. If she wanted it for making 
identification tabs, she’d soon find 
that it was useless. Not that that 
was much comfort — she wasn’t 
likely to return Dimanche after 
she’d made that discovery. 

F or that matter, what was the 
purpose of Travelers Aid 
Bureau? It was a front for an- 
other kind of activity. Philan- 
thropy had nothing to do with it. 

If he still had possession of 
Dimanche, he’d be able to find 
out. Everything seemed to hinge 
on that. With it, he was nearly a 
si%erman, able to hold his own in 
practically all situations — any- 
thing that didn’t involve a Hunt- 
ner woman, that is. 

Without it — well, Tunney 21 
was still far away. Even if he 
should manage to get there with- 
out it, his mission on the planet 
was certain to fail. 

He dismissed the idea of trying 
to recover it immediately from 
Muirra Foray. She was an audio- 
aensitive. At twenty feet, un- 
aided, she could hear a heartbeat, 
the internal noise muscles made 
in sliding over each other. With 
Dimanche. she could hear elec- 
trons rustling. As an antagonist 

zz 



she was altogether too formid- 
able. 

TTE began pulling on his cloth- 
ing, wincing as he did so. The 
alternative was to make another 
Dimanche. // he could. It would 
be a tough job even for a neur- 
onic expert familiar with the proc- 
ess. He wasn’t that expert, but it 
still had to be done. 

The new instrument would 
have to be better than the origi- 
nal. Maybe not such a slick ma- 
chine, but more comprehensive. 
More wallop. He grinned as he 
thought hopefully about giving 
Murra Foray a surprise. 

Ignoring his aches and pains, 
he went right to work. With 
money not a factor, it was an 
easy matter to line up the best 
electronic and neuron concerns on 
Godolph. Two were put on a 
standby ba^s. When he gave 
them plans, they were to rush 
construction at all possible speed. 

Each concern was to build a 
part of the new instrument. 
Neither part was of value with- 
out the other. The slow-thinking 
Godolphians weren’t likely to 
make the necessary mental con- 
nection between the seemingly 
unrelated projects. 

He retired to his suite and be- 
gan to draw diagrams. It was 
harder than he thought. He knew 
the principles, but the actual de- 
tails were far more complicated 



CAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



than he remembered. 

Functionally, the Dimanche In- 
strument was divided into three 
main phases. There was a brain 
and memory unit that operated 
much as the human counterpart 
did. Unlike the human brain, 
however, it had no body to con- 
trol, hence more of it was avail- 
a b 1 e for thought processes. 
Entirely neuronic in construction, 
it was far smaller than an elec- 
tronic brain of the same capacity. 

The second function was elec- 
tronic, akin to radar. Instead of 
material objects, it traced and 
recorded distant nerve impulses. 
It could count the heartbeat, 
measure the rate of respiration, 
was even capable of approximate 
analysis of the contents of the 
bloodstream. Properly focused 
on the nerves of tongue, lips or 
larynx, it transmitted that data 
back to the neuronic brain, which 
then reconstructed it into speech. 
Lip reading, after a fashion, car- 
ried to the ultimate. 

Finally, there was the voice of 
Dimanche. a speaker under the 
control of the neuronic brain. 

For convenience of installation 
in the body, Dimanche was pack- 
aged in two units. The larger 
package was usually surgeried 
into the abdomen. The small one, 
containing the speaker, was at- 
tachecTTo the skull just behind 
the eui. It worked by bone con- 
duction, allowing silent commun- 



ication between operator and 
instrument. A real convenience. 

It wasn’t enough to know this, 
as Cassal did. He’d talked to the 
company experts, had seen the 
symbolical drawings, the plans 
for an improved version. He need- 
ed something better than the best 
though, that had been planned. 

The drawback was this: Di- 
manche was powered directly by 
the nervous system of the body in 
which it was housed. Against 
Murra Foray, he’d be over- 
matched. She was stronger than 
he physically, probably also in 
the production of nervous energy. 

One solution was to make 
available to the new instrument 
a larger fraction of the neural 
currents of the body. That was 
dangerous — a slight miscalcula- 
tion and the user was dead. Yet 
he had to have an instrument 
that would overpower her. 

Cassal rubbed his eyes wearily. 
How could he find some way of 
supplying additional power? 

Abruptly. Ca.ssal sat up. That 
was the way, of course — an aux- 
iliary power pack that need not 
l>e surgeried into his body, extra 
power that he would use only in 
emergencies. 

Neuronics. Inc., had never done 
this, had never thought that such 
an instrument would ever be nec- 
essary. They didn’t need to over- 
power their customers. They 
merely wanted advance informa- 

3f 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



tion via subvocali 2 cd thoughts. 

It was easier for Cassal to con- 
ceive this idea than to engineer 
4*'. At the end of the first day, he 
knew it would be a slow process. 

Twice 416 postponed deadlines 
to the manufacturing concerns 
he’d engaged. He locked himself 
in his rooms and took Anti-Sleep 
against the doctor’s vigorous pro- 
tests. In one week he had the 
necessary drawings, crude but 
legible. An expert would have to 
make innumerable corrections, 
but the intent was plain. 

One week. During that time 
Murra Foray would be growing 
hourly more proficient in the use 
of Dimanchc. 

C ASSAL followed the neuronics 
expert groggily, seventy-two 
hours sleep still clogging his rc- 
act%ns. Not that he hadn’t need- 
ed sleep after that week. The 
Godolphian showed him proudly 
through the shops, though he 
wasn’t at all interested in their 
achievements. The only note- 
worthy aspicct was the grand scale 
of their architecture. 

“We did it, though I don’t 
think we'd have taken the job if 
we’d known how hard it was go- 
ing to be.” the neuronics expert 
chattered. “It works exactly as 
you specified. We had to make 
substitutions, of course, but you 
understand that was inevitable.” 
He glanced anxiously at Cas- 



sal, who nodded. That was to be 
expected. Components that were 
common on Earth wouldn’t nec- 
essarily be available here. Still, 
any expert worth his pay could 
always make the proper combi- 
nations and achieve the same re- 
sults. 

Inside the lab, Cassal frowned. 
“I thought you were keeping my 
work separate. What is this plan- 
etary drive doing here?” 

The Godolphian spread his 
broad hands and looked hurt. 
“Planetary drive?” He tried to 
laugh. “This is the instrument 
you ordered!” 

Cassal started. It was supposed 
to fit under a flap of skin behind 
his ear. A Three World saurian 
couldn’t carry it. 

He turned savagely on the ex- 
pert. “I told you it had to be 
small.” 

“But it is. 1 quote your orders 
exactly: Tm not familiar with 
your system of measurement, but 
make it tiny, very tiny. Figure 
the size you think it will have to 
be and cut it in half. And than 
cut that in half.’ This is the frac- 
tion remaining.” 

It certainly was. Cassal glanced 
at the Godolphian’s hands. Ex- 
cellent- for swimming. No wonder 
they built on a grand scale. 
Broad, blunt, webbed hands 
weren’t exactly suited for preci- 
sion work. 

Valueless. Completely value- 



40 



CAtAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



less. He knew now what he would 
find at the other lab. He shook 
his head in dismay, personally 
saw to it that the instrument was 
destroyed. He paid for the work 
and retrieved the plans. 

Back in his rooms again, he sat 
and thought. It was still the only 
solution. If the Godolphians 
couldn’t do it, he’d have to find 
some race that could. He grabbed 
the intercom and jangled it sav- 
agely. In half an hour he had a 
dozen leads. 

The best seemed to be the 
Spirella. A small, insectlike race, 
about three feet tall, they were 
supposed to have excellent man- 
ual dexterity, and v/erc technical- 
ly advanced. They sounded as if 
they were acquainted with the 
necessary fields. Three lightyears 
away, they could be reached by 
readily available local transpor- 
tation within the day. Their idea 
of what was small was likely to 
coincide with his. 

He didn’t bother to pack. The 
suite would remain his headquar- 
ters. Home was where his enemies 
were. 

He made a mental correction — 
enemy. 

T¥E rubbed his sensitive ear, 
grateful for the discomfort. 
His stomach was sore, but it 
wouldn’t be for long, The Spirella 
had made the new instrument 
just as he had wanted it. They 



had built an even better auxiliary 
power unit than he had specified. 
He fingered the flat cases in his 
pocket. In an emergency, he 
could draw on these, whereas 
Murra Foray would be limited 
to the energy in her nervous sys- 
tem. 

What he had now was hardly 
the same instrument. A Military 
version of it, jierhaps. It didn’t 
seem right to use the same name. 
Call it something staunch and 
crisp, suggestive of raw power. 
Manchc. As good a name as any. 
Manche against Dimanche, Cas- 
sal against a queen. 

He swung confidently along 
the walkway beside the transport 
tide. It was raining. He decided 
to test the new instrument. The 
Godolphian across the way bent 
double and wondered why his 
knees wouldn’t work. They had 
suddenly become swollen and 
painful to move. Maybe it was 
the climate. 

And maybe it wasn’t, thought 
Cassal. Eventually the pain 
would leave, but he hadn’t meant 
to be so rough on the native. He’d 
have to watch how he used 
Manche. 

He scouted the vicinity of 
Travelers Aid Bureau, keeping at 
least one building between him 
and possible detection. Purely 
precautionary. There was no in- 
dication that Murra Foray had 
spotted him. For a Huntner, she 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



wasn’t very alert, apparently. 

He sent Manche out on explo- 
ration at minimum strength. The 
electronic guards which Di- 
manche had spoken of were still 
in place. Manche went through 
easily and didn’t disturb an 
electron. Behind the guards there 
was no trace of the first counselor. 

He went closer. Still no warn- 
ing of danger. The same old 
technician shuffled in front of 
the entrance. A horrible thought 
hit him. It was easy enough to 
verify. Another “reorganization” 
had taken place. The new sign 
read: 

STAK TIUVBI.ERS AID BLREAIJ 

STAB Vour Hour 
of Need 

Dclly Morlinbras, first counselor 

Cassal leaned against the build- 
unable to understand what 
it was that frightened and be- 
wildered him. Then it gradually 
became, if not clear, at least not 
quite so muddy. 

STAB was the word that had 
been printed on the card in the 
money clip that his assailant in 
the alley had left behind, Cassal 
had naturally interpreted it as an 
order to the thug. It wasn’t, of 
course. 

The first time Cassal had vis- 
ited the Travelers Aid Bureau, it 
had been in the process of reor- 
ganization. The only purpose of 
the reorganization, he realized 



now, had been to change the 
name so he wouldn’t translate the 
word on the slip Into the original 
initials of the Bureau. 

Now it probably didn’t matter 
any more whether or not he knew, 
so the name had been changed 
back to Star Travelers Aid Bu- 
reau — STAB. 

That, he saw bitterly, was why 
Murra Foray had been so posi- 
tive that the identification tab 
he’d made with the aid of Di- 
manchc had been a forgery. 

She had known the man who 
robbed Cassal of the original one, 
perhaps had even helped him 
plan the theft. 

T hat didn’t make sense to 
Cassal. Yet it had to. He’d 
suspected the organization of be- 
ing a racket, but it obviously 
wasn’t. By whatever name it was 
called, it actually was dedicated 
to helping the stranded traveler. 
The question was — which travel- 
ers? 

There must be agency opera- 
tives at the spaceport, checking 
every likely prospect who arrived, 
finding out where they were go- 
ing, whether their papers were 
in order. Then, just as had hap- 
pened to Cassal, the prospect was 
robbed Of his papers so somebody 
stranded here could go on to that 
destination ! 

The shabby, aging technician 
finished changing the last door 



42 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



sign and hobbled over to Cassal. 
He peered through the rain and 
darkness. 

“You stuck here, tbo?” he 
quavered. 

“No,” said Cassal with dignity, 
shaky dignity. “I’m not stuck. 
I’m here because I want to be.” 

“You’re crazy,” declared the 
old man. “I remember — ” 

Cassal didn't wait to find out 
what it was he remembered. An 
impossible land, perhaps, a plan- 
et which swings in perfect orbit 
around an ideal sun. A continent 
which reared a purple mountain 
range to hold up a honey sky. 
People with whom anyone could 
relax easily and without worry 
or anxiety. In short, his own na- 
tive world from which, at night, 
all the constellations were fa- 
miliar. 

Somehow. Cassal managed to 
get back to his suite, tumbled 
wearily onto his bed. The show- 
down wasn’t going to take place. 

Everyone connected with the 
agency — including Murra Foray 
—had been “stuck here” for one 
reason or another: no identifica- 
tion tab, no money, whatever it 
was. That was the staff of the 
Bureau, a pack of desperate cast- 
aways. The “philanthropy” ex- 
tended to them and nobody else. 
They grabbed their tabs and 
money from the likeliest travelers, 
leaving them marooned here — 
and they in turn had to join the 



Bureau and use the same methods 
to continue their journeys 
through the Galaxy. 

It was an endless belt of strand- 
ed travelers robbing and strand- 
ing other travelers, who then had 
to rob and strand still others, 
and so on and on . . . 

^"^ASSAL didn’t have a chance 
^ of catching up with Murra 
Foray. She had used the time — 
and Dimanche — ^ to create her 
own identification tab and escape. 
She was going back to Kettikat, 
home of the Huntners, must al- 
ready be light-years away. 

Or was she? The signs on the 
Bureau had just been changed. 
Perhaps the ship was still in the 
spaceport, or cruising along be- 
low the speed of light. He shrug- 
ged defeatedly. It would do him 
no good; he could never get on 
board. 

He got up suddenly on one el- 
bow. He couldn’t, but Manche 
could! Unlike his old instrument, 
it could operate at tremendous 
distances, its power no longer de- 
pendent only on his limited nerv- 
ous energy. 

With calculated fury, he let 
Manche strike out into space. 

“There you are!” exclaimed 
Murra Foray. “I thought you 
could do it." 

“Did you?” he asked coldly. 
“Where are you now?” 

“Leaving the atmosphere, if 



DELAY IN TRANSIT 



43 




you can call the stuff around this 
planet an atmosphere.” 

"It's not the atmosphere that's 
bad,” he said as nastily as he 
could. “It’s the philanthropy.” 
“Please don’t feel that way” 
she appealed. “Huntners are 
rather unusual people, I admit, 
but sometimes even we need help. 



I had to have Dimanche and I 
took it.” 

“At the risk of killing me.” 
Her amusement was strange; 
it held a sort of sadness. “I didn’t 
hurt you. I couldn’t. You were 
too cute',* like a — well, the animal 
native to Kettikat that would be 
called a teddy bear on Earth. A 
cute, lovable teddy bear.” 

“Teddy bear,” he repeated, 
really stung now. “Careful. This 



f- . ’ 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




on#* may have claws.’* 

“Long claws? Long enough to 
reach from here to Kettikat?” 
She was laughing, but it sounded 
tin'n and wistful. 

Munche struck out at Cassal’s 
unsjxjken command. The laugh- 
ter was canceled. 

“Now you’ve done it,” said Di- 



Dimanche investigated. "Of 
course not. A little thing like that 
wouldn’t hurt her. Her nerve sys- 
tem is marvelous. I think it could 
carry current for a city. Beauti- 
ful!" 

’Tin aware of the beauty,** 
said Cassal. 



manche. “She’s out cold.” 

There was no reason for re- 
morse; it was strange that he felt 
it. His throat was dry. 

“So you, too, can communicate 
with me. Through Manche, of 
course. I built a wonderful in- 
strument, didn’t I?” 

“A fearful one,” said Dimanche 
•ternly. “She's unconscious.” » 

“I heard you the first time.’* 
Cassal hesitated. “Is she dead?” 



A N awkward silence followed. 

Dimanche broke it. “Now 
that I know the facts. I’m proud 
to be her chosen instrument. Her 
need was greater than yours.” 
Cassal growled, “As first coun- 
selor. she had access to every — ” 
“Don’t interrupt with your half 
truths,” said Dimanche. “Hunt- 
ners are special; their brain struc- 
ture. too. Not necessarily better, 
just different. Only the auditory 



»El AY IN TRANSIT 



4 $ 



and visvial centers of their brains 
resemble that of man. You can 
guess the results of even super- 
ficial tampering with those parts 
of her mind. And stolen identifi- 
cation would involve lobotomy.” 

He could imagine? Cassal 
shook his head. No. he couldn’t, 
A blinded and deaf Murra Foray 
would not go back to the home of 
the Huntners. According to hei 
racial conditioning, a sightless 
young tiger should creep away 
and die. 

Again there was silence. "No. 
she’s not pretending unconscious- 
ness,” announced Dimanche. "For 
a moment 1 thought — but never 
mind.” 

The conversation was lasting 
longer than he expected. The .ship 
must be obsolete and slow. There 
were still a few things he wanted 
tr^find out. if there was time. 

"When are you going on 
Drive?” he asked. 

"We’ve been on it for some 
time,” answered Dimanche. 

"Repeat that!” said Cassal, 
stunned. 

‘T said that we’ve been on 
faster-than-light drive for some 
time. Is there anything wrong 
with that?” 

Nothing wrong with that at all. 
Theoretically, there was only one 
means of communicating with a 
ship hurtling along faster than 
fight, and that way hadn’t been 
invented. 



Hiidn'i been unfil he had put 
together the instrument he called 
Manche. 

Unwittingly, he had created far 
more than he intended. He ought 
to have felt elated. 

Dimanche interrupted bis 
thoughts. ‘T suppose you .know 
what she thinks of you.” 

■‘She made it plain enough.” 
said Cassal wearily. "A teddy 
bear. A brainless, childish toy.” 

"Among the Huntners, women 
are vigorous and aggressive,” said 
Dimanche. The voice grew weak- 
er as the ship, already light-years 
away, slid into unfathomable dis- 
tances. "Where words are con- 
cerned. morals are very strict. For 
instance, 'dear’ is never used 
unless the person means it. Hunt- 
ner nien are weak and not over- 
burdened with intelligence.’’ 

The voice was barely audible, 
but it continued; ‘'The principal 
romantic figure in the dreams of 
women . . Dimanche failed al- 
together. 

"Manche!” cried Cassal. 

Manche responded with every- 
thing it had. . . is the teddy 
bear." 

The elation that had been miss- 
ing, and the triumph, came now. 
It was no time for hesitation, and 
Cassal didn’t hesitate. Their ac- 
tions had been directed against 
each other, but their emotions, 
which each had tried to ignore, 
were real and strong. 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



The gravitor dropped him to 
the ground floor. In a few min- 
utes. Cassal was at the Travelers 
Aid Bureau. 

Correction, Now it was Star 
Travelers Aid Bureau. 

And. though no one but himself 
knew it. even that was wrong. 
Quickly he found the old tech- 
nician. 

“There's been a reoi^aniza- 
tion,” said Cassal bluntly. “I 
want the signs changed.” 

The old man drew Kimseli up. 
“Who are you?” 

“I’ve just elected myself.” said 
Cassal. “I’m the new first coun- 
selor.” 

He hoped no one would be 
foolish enough to challenge him. 
He wanted an organization that 
could function immediately, not 
a hospital full of cripples. 

The old man thought about it. 
He was merely a menial, but he 
had been with the bureau for a 
long time. He was nobody, noth- 
ing. but he could recognize power 
when it was near him. He wiped 
his eyes and shambled out into 
the fine cold rain. Swiftly the 
new signs went up. 

STAR TRAVELKRS AID BlREtir 
S. T. A. with ua 

Denton Cassal, first counselor 

^ASSAL sat at the control cen- 
ter. Every question cubicle 
was visible at a glance. In addi- 



tion there was a special panel, 
direct from the spaceport, which 
recorded essential data a)30ut 
every newly arrived traveler. He 
could think of a few minor im- 
provements, but he wouldn’t have 
time to put them into effect. He’d 
mention them to his assistant, a 
man with a fine, logical mind. 
Not really first-rate, of course, 
but well suited to his secondary 
position. Every member quickly 
rose or sank t<^ his proper level 
in this organization, and this one 
had, without a struggle. 

Business was dull. The last 
few ships had brought travelers 
who were bound for unimagin- 
ably dreary destinations, nothing 
he need be concerned with. 

He thought about the instru- 
ment. It was the addition of pow- 
er that made the difference. 
Dimanche plus power equaled 
Manche. and Manche raised the 
user far above the level of other 
men. There was little to fear. 

But essentially the real value 
of Manche lay in this — it was a 
beginning. Through it, he had 
communicated with a ship travel- 
ing far faster than light. The only 
one instrument capable of that 
was instantaneous radio. Actual- 
ly it wasn’t radio, but the old 
name had stuck to it. 

Manche was really a very 
primitive model of instantaneous 
radio. It was crude; all first steps 
were. Limited in range, it was 

47 



OEIAY IN TRANSIT 



practically valueless for that pur- 
pose now. Eventually the range 
would be extended. Hitch a neu- 
ronic manufactured brain to hu- 
man one, add the power of a tiny 
atomic battery, and Manche was 
created. 

Tl)e last step was his share of 
the invention. Or maybe the cred- 
it belonged to Murra Foray. If 
she hadn’t stolen Dimanche, it 
never would have been necessary 
to put together the new instru- 
ment. 

The stern lines on his face re- 
laxed. Murra Foray. He wonder- 
ed about the marriage customs of 
the Huntners. He hoped marriage 
wa.s a custom on Kettikat. 

Cassal leaned back; officially, 
hia mission was complete. There 
was fto longer any need to go to 
Tunney 21. The scientist he was 
sent to bring back might as well 
remain there in obscure arro- 
gance. Cassal knew he should re- 
turn to Earth immediately. But 
the Galaxy was wide and there 
were lots of places to go. 

Only one he was interested in, 
though—Kettikat, as far from the 
center of the Galaxy as Earth, 
but in the opposite direction, in- 
credibly far away in terms of 
trouble and transportation. It 
would be difficult even for a man 
who had the services of Manche. 

Cassal glanced at the board. 
Someone wanted to go to Zombo. 

“Delly,” he called to his assist- 

48 



ant. “Try 13. This may be what 
you want to get back to your own 
planet,” 

Delly Mortinbras nodded grate- 
fully and cut in. 

Cassal continued scanning. 
There was more to it than he 
imagined, though he was learn- 
ing fast. It wasn’t enough to have 
identification, money, and a des- 
tination. The right ship might 
come in with standing room only. 
Someone had to be “persuaded” 
that Godolph was a cozy little 
place, as good as any for an un- 
scheduled stopover. 

It wouldn’t change appreciably 
during his lifetime. There were 
too many billions of stars. First 
he had to perfect it, isolate from 
dependence on the human ele- 
ment, and then there would come 
the installation. A slow process, 
even with Murra to help him. 

Someday he would go back to 
Earth. He should be welcome. 
The information he was sending 
back to his former employers, 
Neuronics, Inc., would more than 
compensate them for the loss of 
Dimanche. 

Suddenly he was alert. A re- 
port had just come in. 

Once upon a time, he thought 
tenderly, scanning the report, 
there was a teddy bear that could 
reach to Kettikat. With claws — 
but he didn’t think they would 
be needed. 

— F. L. WAI.LACE 
GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




the 

Snowball 

effect 

By KATHERINE MocLEAN 

Tock power drives on o sewing 
circle and you can needle the 
world info the dorndest messl 



filustreted by EMSH 



44 A LL right.” I said, “what 
IS sociology good 
jT%_ for?” 

Wilton Caswell. Ph.D.. was 
head of my Sociology Depart- 
ment, and right then he was mad 
enough to chew nails. On the 
office wall behind him were three 
or four framed documents in 
Latin that were supposed to be 
signs of great learning, but I 
didn’t care at that moment if he 
papered the walls with his de- 



THI SNOWRAlt EFFECT 



49 



grres. I had been appointed dean 
and president to see to it that the 
university made money. I had a 
job to do, and I meant to do it. 

He bit off each word with great 
restraint: “Sociology is the study 
of social institutions, Mr. Hallo- 
way.” 

I tried to make him understand 
my position. “Look, it’s the big- 
money men who are supposed^ to 
be contributing to the support of 
this college. To them, sociology 
sounds like socialism — nothing 
can sound worse than that — and 
an institution is where they put 
Aunt Maggy when she began col- 
lecting Wheaties in a stamp al- 
bum. We can’t appeal to them 
that way. Come on now.” I smiled 
condescendingly, knowing it 
would irritate him. “What are 
♦ you doing that’s worth any- 
thing?” 

He glared at me, his white hair 
bristling and his nostrils dilated 
like a war horse about to whinny. 
I can say one thing for them — 
these scientists and professors al- 
ways keep themselves well under 
control. He had a book in his 
hand and I was expecting him to 
throw it, but he spoke instead: 

“This department’s analysis of 
institutional accretion_by the use 
of open system mathematics, has 
been recognized as an outstand- 
ing and valuable contribution 

The words were impressive. 



whatever they meant, but this 
still didn’t sound like anything 
that would pull’ in money. 1 in- 
terrupted, “Valuable in what 
way?” 

He sat down on the edge of 
his desk thoughtfully, apparently 
recovering from the shock of be- 
ing asked to produce something 
solid for his position, and ran 
his eyes over the titles of the 
books that lined his office walls. 

“Well, sociology has been valu/- 
able to business in initiating 
worker efficiency and group mo- 
tivation studies, which they now 
use in management decisions. 
And, of course, since the depres- 
sion, Washington has been using 
sociological studies of ernploy- 
ment, labor and standards of liv- 
ing as a basis for its general 
policies of — ” 

1 stopped him with both raised 
hands. “Please, Professor Cas- 
well! That would hardly be a 
recommendation. Washington, the 
New Deal and the present Ad- 
ministration are somewhat touchy 
subjects to the men I have to deal 
with. They consider its value de- 
batable, if you know what I 
mean. If they got the idea that 
sociology professors are giving 
advice and guidance — No, we 
have to stick to brass tacks and 
leave Washington out of this. 
What, specifically, has the work 
of this specific department done 
that would make it as worthy to 



50 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



receive money as — say, a heart 
disease research fund?” 

He began to tap the corner of 
his book absently on the desk, 
wacthing me. ^‘Fundamental re- 
search doesn^t show immediate 
effects, Mr. Halloway, but its 
value is recogni 2 ed.” 

I smiled and took out iny pipe. 
“All right, tell me about it. May- 
be ril recognize its value.” 

Prof. Caswell smiled back 
tightly. He knew his department 
was at stake. The other depart- 
ments were popular with donors 
and pulled in gift money by 
scholarships and fellowships, and 
supported their professors and 
graduate students by research 
contracts with the government 
and industry. Caswell had to 
sliow a way to make his own de- 
partment popular — or else. I 
couldn’t fire him directly, of 
course, but there are ways of 
doing it indirectly. 

¥ ¥E laid down his book and ran 
hand over his ruffled hair. 
“Institutions — organizations, 
that is — ” his voice became more 
resonant: like most professors, 
when he had to explain some- 
thing he instinctively slipped into 
his platform lecture mannerisms, 
and began to deliver an essay — 
“have certain tendencies built 
into the way they happen to have 
been organized, which cause them 
to expand or contract without 

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT 



reference to the needs they were 
founded to serve.” 

He was becoming flushed with 
the pleasure of explaining his 
subject. “All through the ages, it 
has been a matter of wonder and 
dismay to men that a simple or- 
ganization — such as a church to 
worship in. or a delegation of 
weapons to a warrior class merely 
for defense against an outside en- 
emy — will either grow insensate- 
ly and extend its control until it 
is a tyranny over their whole 
lives, or, like other organizations 
set up to serve a vital need, will 
tend to repeatedly dwindle and 
vanish, and have to be painfully 
rebuilt. 

“The reason can be traced to 
little quirks in the way they were 
organized, a matter of positive 
and negative power feedbacks. 
Such simple questions as. ‘Is 
there a way a holder of author- 
ity in this organization can use 
the power available to him to in- 
crease his power?’ provide the 
key. But it still could not be 
handled until the complex ques- 
tions of interacting motives and 
long-range accumulations of mi- 
nor effects could somehow be 
simplified and formulated. In 
working on the problem, 1 found 
that the mathematics of open sys- 
tem, as introduced to biology by 
Ludwig von Bertalanffy and 
George Kreezer, could be used 
as a base that would enable me 

51 



to develop a specifically social 
mathematics, expressing the hu- 
man factors of intermeshing au- 
thority and motives in simple 
formulas. 

“By these formulations, it is 
possible to determine automati- 
cally the amount of growth and 
period of life of any organization. 
The UN, to choose an unfortu- 
nate example, is a shrinker type 
organization. Its monetary sup- 
port is not in the hands of those 
who personally benefit by its gov- 
ernmental activities, but, instead, 
in the hands of those who would 
personally lose by any extension 
and encroachment of its author- 
ity on their own. Yet by the use 
of formula analysis — “ 

“That’s theory,” I said. “How 
about proof?” 

“My equations are already 
toeing used in the study of lim- 
ited-size Federal corf>orations. 
Washington — ” 

I held up my palm again. 
“Please, not that nasty word 
again. I mean, where else has it 
been put into operation? Just a 
simple demonstration, something 
to show that it works, that’s all.” 

He looked away from me 
thoughtfully, picked up the book 
and began to tap it on the desk 
again. It had some unreadable 
title and his name on it in gold 
letters. I got the distinct impres- 
sion again that he was repressing 
an urge to hit me with it. 



He spoke quietly. “All right, 
ril give you a demonstration. 
Arc you willing to wait six 
months?” 

“Certainly, if you can show me 
something at the end of that 
time.” 

Reminded of time, I glanced 
at my watch and stood up. 

“Could we discuss this over 
lunch?” he asked. 

“I wouldn’t mind hearing more, 
but I’m having lunch with some 
executors of a millionaire’s will. 
They have to be convinced that 
by, ‘furtherance of research into 
human ills,’ he meant that the 
money should go to research fel- 
lowships for postgraduate biolo- 
gists at the university, rather than 
to a medical foundation.” 

“I see you have your problems, 
too,” Caswell said, conceding me 
nothing. He extended his hand 
with a chilly smile. “Well, good 
afternoon, Mr. Halloway. I’m 
glad we had this talk.” 

I shook hands and left him 
standing there, sure of his place 
in the progress of science and the 
respect of his colleagues, yet 
seething inside because I, the 
president and dean, had boorish- 
ly demanded that he produce 
something tangible. 

I frankly didn’t give a hoot if 
he blew his lid. My job isn’t easy. 
For a crumb of favorable pub- 
licity and respect in the newspa- 
pers and an annual ceremony in 



S’ 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



8 silly costume, I spend the rest 
of the year going hat in hand, 
asking politely for money at 
everyone’s door, like a well- 
dressed panhandler, and trying to 
manage the university on the 
dribble I get. As far as I was 
concerned, a department had to 
support itself or be cut down to 
what student tuition pays for, 
which is a handful of over- 
crowded courses taught by an as- 
sistant lecturer. Caswell had to 
make it work or get out. 

But the more I thought about 
it, the more I wanted to hear 
what he was going to do for a 
demonstration. 

A T lunch, three days later, 
while we were waiting for our 
order, he opened a small note- 
book. "Ever hear of feedback ef- 
fects?” 

“Not enough to have it clear.” 
“You know the snowball effect, 
though.” 

“Sure, start a snowball rolling 
downhill and it grows.” 

“W?n, now — ” He wrote a short 
line of symbols on a blank page 
and turned the notebook around 
for me to inspect it. “tire’s the 
formula for the snowball proc- 
ess. It’s the basic general growth 
formula — covers everything.” 

It was a row of little symbols 
arranged like an algebra equa- 
tion. One was a concentric spiral 
going up, like a cross-section of a 

THE SNOWBAIL EFFECT 



snowball rolling in snow. That 
was a growth sign. 

I hadn’t expected to under- 
stand the equation, but it was 
almost as clear as a sentence. I 
was impressed and slightly in- 
timidated by it. He had already 
explained enough so that I knew 
that, if he was right, here was the 
growth of the Catholic Church 
and the Roman Empire, the con- 
quests of Alexander and the 
spread of the smoking habit and 
the change and rigidity of the 
unwritten law of styles. 

“Is it really as simple as that?** 
I asked. 

“You notice,” he said, “that 
when it becomes too heavy for 
the cohesion strength of snow, it 
breaks apart. Now in human 
terms — ” 

The chops and mashed pota- 
toes and peas arrived. 

“Go on,” I urged. 

He was deep in the symbology 
of human motives and the equa- 
tions of human behavior in 
groups. After running through a 
few different types of grower and 
shrinker type organizations, we 
came back to the snowball, and 
decided to run the test by making 
something grow. 

“You add the motives.” he 
said, “and the equation will trans- 
late them into organization.” 

“How about a good selfish rea- 
son for the ins to drag others into 
the group— some sort of bounty 

St 



on new members, a cut of their 
membership fee?” I suggested un- 
certainly, feeling slightly foolish. 
“And maybe a reason why the 
members would lose if any of 
them resigned, and some indirect 
way they could use to force each 
other to stay in.” 

“The first is the chain letter 
principle,” he nodded. “I’ve got 
that. The other . . He put the 
symbols through some mathe- 
matical manipulation so that a 
special grouping appeared in the 
middle of the equation. “That’s 
it.” 

Since I seemed to have the 
right idea, I suggested some more, 
and he added some, and juggled 
them ^ound in different patterns. 
We threw out a few that would 
have made the organization too 
Complicated, and finally worked 
out an idyllically simple and 
deadly little organization setup 
where joining had all the temp- 
tation of buying a sweepstakes 
ticket, going in deeper was as 
easy as hanging around a race 
track, and getting out was like 
trying to pull free from a Ma- 
layan thumb trap. We put our 
heads closer together and talked 
lower, picking the best place for 
the demonstration. 

“Abington?” 

“How about Watashaw? I have 
some student sociological surveys 
of it already. We cem pick a suit- 
able group from that.’' 



“This demonstration has got to 
be convincing. We’d better pick 
a little group that no one in his 
right mind would expect to 
grow.” 

“There should be a suitable 
club — ” 

Picture Professor Caswell, head 
of the Department of Sociology, 
and with him the President of the 
University, leaning across the 
table toward each other, sipping 
coffee and talking in conspira- 
torial tones over something they 
were writing in a notebook. 

That was us. 

“T ADIES.” said the skinny fe- 
male chairman of the Wata- 
shaw Sewing Circle. “Today we 
have guests.” She signaled for us 
to rise, and we stood up, bowing 
to polite applause and smiles. 
“Professor Caswell, and Profes- 
sor Smith.” (My alias.) “They 
are making a survey of the 
methods and duties of the clubs 
of Watashaw.” 

We sat down to another ripple 
of applause and slightly wider 
smiles, and then the meeting of 
the Watashaw Sewing Circle be- 
gan. In five minutes I began to 
feel sleepy. 

There were only about thirty 
people there, and it was a small 
room, not the halls of Congress, 
but they discussed their business 
of collecting and repairing second 
hand clothing for charity with 



54 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



the same endless boring parlia- 
mentary formality. 

I pointed out to Caswell the 
member I thought would be the 
natural leader, a tall, well-built 
woman in a green suit, with con- 
scious gestures and a resonant, 
penetrating voice, and then went 
into a half doze while Caswell 
stayed awake beside me and 
wrote in his notebook. After a 
while the resonant voice roused 
me to attention for a moment. It 
was the tall woman holding the 
floor over some collective dere- 
liction of the club. She was being 
scathing. 

I nudged Caswell and mur- 
mured, “Did you fix it so that 
a shover has a better chance of 
getting into office than a non- 
shover?” 

“I think there’s a way they 
could find for it." Caswell whis- 
pered back, and went to work on 
his equation again. “Yes, several 
ways to bias the elections.” 

“Good. Point them out tact- 
fully to the one you select. Not as 
if she’d use such methods, but 
just as an example of the reason 
why only she can be trusted with 
initiating the change. Just men- 
tion all the personal advantages 
an unscrupulous person could 
have.” 

He nodded, keeping a straight 
and sober face as if we were ex- 
changing admiring remarks about 
the techniques of clothes repair- 



ing, instead of conspiring. 

After the meeting, Caswell 
drew the tall woman in the green 
suit aside and spoke to her confi- 
dentially, showing her the dia- 
gram of organization we had 
drawn up. I saw the responsive 
glitter in the woman’s eyes and 
knew she was hooked. 

We left the diagram of organi- 
zation and our typed copy of the 
new bylaws with her and went off 
soberly, as befitted two social 
science experimenters. We didn’t 
start laughing until our car 
passed the town limits and began 
the climb for University Heights. 

If Caswell's equations meant 
anything at all, we had given that 
sewing circle more growth drives 
than the Roman Empire. 

T^OUR months later I had time 
■■■ out from a very busy schedule 
to wonder how the test was com- 
ing along. Passing Caswell’s of- 
fice, I put my head in. He looked 
up from a student research • pa- 
per he was correcting. 

“Caswell, about that sewing 
club business — I’m beginning to 
feel the suspense. Could I get an 
advance report on how it’s com- 
ing?” 

“I’m not following it. We’re 
supposed to let it run the full 
six months.” 

“But I’m curious. Could I get 
in touch with that woman — 
what’s her name?” 



THE SNOWBALL EFFECT 



95 



“Searles. Mrs. George Searles.” 
“Would that change the re* 
suits?” 

“Not in the slightest. If you 
want to graph the membership 
rise, it should be going up in a 
log curve, probably doubling 
every so often.” 

I grinned. “If it’s not rising, 
you’re fired.” 

He grinned back. “If it’s not 
rising, you won’t have to fire me 
—I’ll burn my books and shoot 
myself.” 

♦ I returned to my office and put 
in a call to Watashaw. 

While I was waiting for the 
phone to be answered, I took a 
piece of graph paper and ruled it 
off into six sections, one for each 
month. After the phone had rung 
in the distance for a long time, a 
servant answered with a bored 
(jfawl : 

“Mrs. Searles’ residence.” 

I picked up a red gummed star 
and licked it. 

“Mrs. Searles, please.” 

“She’s not In just now. Could 
I take a message?” 

I placed the star at the thirty 
line in the beginning of the first 
section. Thirty members they’d 
started with. 

“No, thanks. Could you tell 
me when she’ll be back?” 

“Not until dinner. She’s at the 
meetin’.” 

“The sewing club?" I asked. 
“No, sf'r, not that thing. There 



isn’t any sewing club any more, 
not for a long time. She’s at the 
Civic Welfare meeting.” 

Somehow I hadn’t expected 
anything like that. 

“Thank you,” I said and hung 
up. and after a moment noticed 
1 was holding a box of red 
gummed stars in my hand. I 
closed it and put it down on top 
of the graph of membership in 
the sewing circle. No more mem- 
bers . . . 

Poor Caswell. The bet between 
us was ironclad. He wouldn’t let 
me back down on it even if I 
wanted to. He’d probably quit 
before I put through the first 
slow move to fire him. His pro- 
fessional pride would be shat- 
tered, sunk without a trace. I 
remembered what he said about 
shooting himself. It had seemed 
funny to both of us at the time, 
but . . . What a mess that would 
make for the university. 

I had to talk to Mrs. Searles. 
Perhaps there was some outside 
reason why the club had dis- 
banded. Perhaps it had not just 
died. 

I called back. “This is Profes- 
sor Smith,” I said, giving the 
alias I had used before. “I called 
a few minutes ago. When did you 
say Mrs. Searles will return?” 

“About six-thirty or seven 
o’clock.” 

Five hours to wait. 

And what if Caswell asked me 



S6 



GALAXY SCIENCI FICTION 



what I had found out in the 
meantime? I didn’t want to tell 
him anything until I had talked 
it over with that woman Searles 
first. 

“Where is this Civic Welfare 
meeting?” 

She told me. 

Five minutes later, I was in 
my car, heading for Watashaw, 
driving considerably faster than 
my usual speed and keeping a 
careful watch for highway patrol 
cars as the speedometer climbed. 

T he town meeting hall and 
theater was a big place, prob- 
ably with lots of small rooms for 
different clubs. I went in through 
the center door and found myself 
in the huge central hall where 
some sort of rally was being held. 
A political-type rally — you know, 
cheers and chants, with bunting 
already down on the floor, people 
holding banners, and plenty of 
enthusiasm and excitement in the 
air. Someone was making a 
speech up on the platform. Most 
of the people there were women. 

I wondered how the Civic. Wel- 
fare League could dare hold its 
meeting at the same time as a 
political rally that could puU its 
members away. The group with 
Mrs. Searles was probably hold- 
ing a shrunken and almost mem- 
berless meeting somewhere in an 
Upper room. 

There probably was a side door 



that would lead upstairs. 

While I glanced around, a 
pretty girl usher put a printed 
bulletin in my hand, whispering, 
“Here’s one of the new copies.” 
As I attempted to hand it back, 
she retreated. “Oh. you can keep 
it. It’s the new one. Everyone’s 
supposed to have it. We’ve just 
printed up six thousand copies to 
make sure there’ll be enough to 
last.” 

The tall woman on the plat- 
form had been making a driving, 
forceful speech about some plans 
for rebuilding Watashaw’s slum 
section. It began to penetrate my 
mind dimly as I glanced down at 
the bulletin in my hands. 

“Civic Welfare League of Wat- 
ashaw. The United Organization 
of Church and Secular Charities.” 
That’s what it said. Below began 
the rules of membership. 

I looked up. The speaker, with 
a clear, determined voice and 
conscious, forceful gestures, had 
entered the home -stretch of her 
speech, an appeal to the civic 
pride of all citizens of Watashaw. 

“With a bright and glorious 
future — potentially without poor 
and without uncared-for ill — po- 
tentially with no ugliness, no vis- 
tas which are not beautiful — the 
best people in the best planned 
town in the country — the jewel 
of the United States.” 

She paused and then leaned 
•forward intensely, striking her 



THE SNOWBALl EFFECT 



. sy 



clenched hand on the speaker’s 
stand with each word for em- 
phasis. 

*’AU we need /s more members. 
Now get out there and rectuit!" 

I finally recognized Mrs. 
Searles, as an answering sudden 
blast of sound half deafened me. 
The crowd was chanting at the 
top of its lungs: “Recruit! Re- 
cruit!” 

Mrs. Searles stood still at the 
speaker’s table and behind her, 
seated in a row of chairs, was a 
group that was probably the 
board of directors. It was mostly 
women, and the women began to 
look vaguely familiar, as if they 
could be members of the sewing 
circle. 

I put my lips close to the ear 
of the pretty usher while 1 turned 
over the stiff printed bulletin on 
a 4iunch. “How long has the 
League been organized?” On the 
back of the bulletin was a con- 
stitution. 

She was cheering with the 
crowd, her eyes sparkling. “I 
don’t know,” she answered be- 
tween cheers. “I only joined two 
days ago. Isn’t it wonderful?” 

I went into the quiet outer air 
and got into my car with my 
skin prickling. Even as I drove 
away, I could hear them. They 
were singing some kind of or- 
ganization song with the tune of 
“Marching through Georgia.” 

Even at the single glance I had 



given it, the constitution looked 
exactly like the one we had given 
the Watashaw Sewing Circle. 

All I told Caswell when I got 
back was that the sewing circle 
had changed its name and the 
membership seemed to be rising. 

■j^EXT day, after calling Mrs. 

^ Searles. I placed some red 
stars on my graph for the first 
three months. They made a nice 
curve, rising more steeply as it 
reached the fourth month. They 
had picked up their first increase 
in membership simply by amal- 
gamating with all the other types 
of charity organizations in Wata- 
shaw. changing the club name 
with each fusion, but keeping the 
same constitution — the constitu- 
tion with the bright promise of 
advantages as long as there were 
always new members bein^ 
brought in. 

By the fifth month, the League 
had added a mutual baby-sitting 
service and had induced the local 
school board to add a nursery 
school to the town service, so as 
to free more women for League 
activity. But charity must have 
been completely organized by 
then, and expansion had to be in 
other directions. 

Some real estate agents evi- 
dently had been drawn into the 
whirlpool early, along with their 
ideas. The sA>jm improvement 
plans began to blossom and take 



51 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



on a tinge of real estate planning 
later in the month. 

The first day of the sixth 
month, a big two page spread 
appeared in the local paper of a 
mass meeting which had ap- 
proved a full-fledged scheme for 
slum clearance of Watashaw’s 
shack-town section, plus plans for 
rehousing, civic building, and re- 
zoning. And good prospects for 
attracting some new industries to 
the town, industries which had 
already been contacted and 
seemed interested by the privi- 
leges offered. 

And with all this, an arrange- 
ment for securing and distribut- 
ing to the club members alone 
most of the profit that would 
come to the town in the form of 
a rise in the price of building 
sites and a boom in the building 
industry. The profit distributing 
arrangement was the same one 
that had been built into the or- 
ganization plan for the distribu- 
tion of the small profits of 
membership fees and honorary 
promotions. It was becoming an 
openly profitable business. Mem- 
bership was rising more rapidly 
now. 

By the second week of the 
sixth month, news appeared in 
the local paper that the club had 
filed an application to incorpo- 
rate itself as the Watashaw Mu- 
tual Trade and Civic Develop- 
ment Corporation, and all the 



local real estate promoters had 
finished joining en masse. The 
Mutual Trade part sounded to 
me as if the Chamber of Com- 
merce was on the point of being 
pulled in with them, ideas, am- 
bitions and all. 

I chuckled while reading the 
next page of the paper, on which 
a local politician was reported as 
having addressed the club with 
a long flowery oration on their 
enterprise, charity, and civic 
spirit. He had been made an 
honorary member. If he allowed 
himself to be made a full member 
with its contractual obligations 
and its lures, if the politicians 
went into this, too . . . 

I laughed, filing the newspaper 
with the other documents on the 
Watashaw test. These proofs 
would fascinate any businessman 
with the sense to see where his 
bread was buttered. A business- 
man is constantly dealing with 
organizations, including his own, 
and finding them either inert, 
cantankerous, or both. Caswell’s 
formula could be a handle to 
grasp them with. Gratitude alone 
would bring money into the uni- 
versity in carload lots. 

T he end of the sixth month 
came. The test was over and 
the end reports were spectacular. 
Caswell’s formulas were proven to 
the hilt. 

After reading the last news- 



THE SNOWBALL EFFECT 



paper reports, I called him u^. 

“Perfect, Wilt, perfect/ I can 
use this Watashaw thing to get 
you so many fellowships and 
scholarships and grants for your 
department that you’ll think it’s 
snowing money!” 

He answered somewhat disin- 
terestedly, “I’ve been busy work- 
ing with students on their 
research papers and marking tests 
— not following the Watashaw 
business at all, I’m afraid. You 
say the demonstration went well 
and you’re satisfied?” 

He was definitely putting on a 
chill. We were friends now, but 
obviously he was still peeved 
whenever he was reminded that 
I had doubted that his theory 
could work. And he was using its 
success to rub my nose in the 
realization that I had been 
wrong. A man with a string of 
degrees after his name is just as 
human as anyone else. Z had 
needled him pretty hard that first 
time. 

“I’m satisfied,” I acknowl- 
edged. “I was wrong. The for- 
mulas work beautifully. Come 
over and see my file of docu- 
ments on it if you want a boost 
for your ego. Now let’s see the 
formula for stopping it.” 

He sounded cheerf\il again. “I 
didn’t complicate that organiza- 
tion with negatives. I wanted it 
to grow. It falls apart naturally 
when it stops gj;owing for more 



than two months. It’s like the 
great stock boom before an eco- 
nomic crash. Everyone in it is 
prosperous as long as the prices 
just keep going up and new buy- 
ers come into the market, but 
they all knew what would hap- 
pen if it stopped growing. You 
remember, we built in as one of 
the incentives that the members 
know they are going to lose if 
membership stops growing. Why, 
if 1 tried to stop it now, they’d 
cut my throat.” 

I remembered the drive and 
frenzy of the crowd in the one 
early meeting I had seen. They 
probably would. 

“No,” he continued. "We’ll just 
let it play out to the end of its 
tether and die of old age.” 
“When will that be?” 

“It can't grow past the female 
population of the town. There are 
only so many women in Wata- 
shaw, and some of them don’t 
like sewing.” 

The graph on the desk before 
me began to look sinister. Surely 
Caswell n^ist have made some 
provision for — 

“You underestimate their inge- 
nuity,” I said into the phone. 
“Since they wanted to expand, 
they didn’t stick to sewing. They 
went from general charity to so- 
cial welfare schemes to something 
that’s pretty close to an incor- 
porated government. The name is 
now the Watashaw Mutual Trade 



«0 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



and Civic I>evclopment Corpo- 
ration, and they’re hUng an ap- 
plication to change it to Civic 
Property Pool and Social Divi- 
dend, membership contractual, 
open to all. That social dividend 
sounds like a Technocrat climbed 
on the band wagon, eh?” 

While I spoke, I carefully add- 
ed another red star to the curve 
above the thousand member level, 
checking with the newspaper that 
still lay open on my desk. The 
curve was definitely some sort of 
log curve now, growing ntore rap- 
idly with each increase. 

^‘Leaving out practical limita- 
tions for a moment, where does 
the formula say it will stop?” I 
asked. 

“When you run out of people 
to join it. But after all, there are 
only so many people in Wata- 
shaw. It’s a pretty small town.” 

“r^HEY’VE opened a branch 
office in New York,” I said 
carefully Into the phone, a few 
weeks later. 

With my pencil, very careful- 
ly, I extended the membership 
curve from where it was then. 



After the next doubling, the 
curve went almost straight up 
and off the page. 

Allowing for a lag of conta- 
gion from one nation to another, 
depending on how much their 
citizens intermingled, I’d give the 
rest of the world about twelve 
years. 

There was a long silence while 
Caswell probably drew the same 
graph in his own mind. Then he 
laughed weakly, “Well, you asked 
me for a demonstration.” 

That was as good an answer 
as any. We got together and had 
lunch in a bar, if you can call it 
lunch. The movement we started 
will expand by hook or by crook, 
by seduction or by bribery or by 
propaganda or by conquest, but 
it will expand. And maybe a total 
world government will be a fine 
thing — until it hits the end of its 
rope in twelve years or so. 

What happens then, I don't 
know. 

But I don’t want anyone to pin 
that on me. From now on, if any- 
one asks me, I’ve never heard of 
Watashaw. 

— KATIlliliUNe MarIXAN 



Th* 10th enniv«ftary World Scionc* Fiction Convontion will bo hold at tho Hotol Mor- 
rison in Chicago on Awgvst 30, 31 and Soptombor I, 1952. You'll moot your favorito 
•ditors, writors and iltvslrators. Send $1 for momborship to Sox 1422, Chicago 90, Illinois. 
YomU got a piece of the moon and full information in roturni 



THE SNOWBAll EFFECT 







Today is Forever 



By ROGER DEE 

Illustrated by EMSH 



Boyle knew there was an on^fe 

f>e/iind the aliens' generosity 

. , . but he had one of his own! 

a "^HESE Alcorians have 
H been on Earth for only 
m a month,” David Locke 
said, "but already they’re driving 

6r 



a wedge between AL&O and the 
Social Body that can destroy the 
Weal overnight. Boyle, it’s got 
to be stopped!” 

He put his elbows on Moira’s 
antique conversation table and 
leaned toward the older man, his 
eyes hot and anxious. 

"There are only the two of 
them — Fermiirig and Santikh; 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



you’ve probably seen stills- of 
them on the visinews a hundred 
times — and AL&O has kept them 
so closely under cover that we 
of the Social Body never get more 
than occasional rumors about 
what they’re really like. But I 
know from what I overheard that 
they’re carbonstructure oxygen- 
breathers with a metabolism very 
much like our own. What affects 
them physically will affect us 
also. And the offer they’ve made 
Cornelison and Bissell Do- 
rand of Administrative Council is 
genuine. It amounts to a lot more 
than simple longevity, because 
the process can be repeated. In 
effect, it’s — ” 

“Immortality,” Boyle said, and 
forgot the younger man on the 
instant. 

The shock of it as a reality 
blossomed in his mind with a 
slow explosion of triumph. It had 
come in his time, after all, and 
the fact that the secret belonged 
to the first interstellar visitors to 
reach Karth had no bearing what- 
ever on his determination to pos- 
sess it. Neither had the knowl- 
edge that the Alcorians had 
promised the process only to the 
highest of government bodies. 
Administrative Council. The 
whole of AL&O — Administration, 
Legislation and Order— could not 
keep it from him. 

"It isn’t ri^ht,” Locke said 
heatedly. "It doesn’t fit in with 



what we’ve been taught to be- 
lieve, Boyle. We’te still a modi- 
fied democracy, and the Social 
Body is the Weal. We can’t i>er- 
mit Cornelison and Bissell and 
Dorand to take what amounts to 
immortality for themselves and 
deny it to the populace. That’s 
tyranny!" 

The charge brought Boyle out 
of his preoccupation with a start. 
For the moment, he had forgot- 
ten Locke’s presence in Moira’s 
apartment. He had even forgot- 
ten his earlier annoyance with 
Moira for allowing the sopho- 
moric fool visitor’s privilege when 
it was Boyle’s week, to the exclu- 
sion of the other two husbands in 
Moira’s marital-seven, to share 
the connubial right with her. 

But the opportunity tumbled 
so forcibly into his lap was not 
one to be handled lightly. He 
held In check his contempt for 
Locke and his irritation with 
Moira until he had considered 
his windfall from every angle, 
and had marshalled its possibili- 
ties into a working outline of his 
coup to come. 

He even checked his lapel 
watch against the time of Moira’s 
return from the theater before he 
answered Locke. With character- 
istic cynicism, he took it for 
granted that Locke, in his indig- 
nation, had already shared his 
discovery with Moira, and in 
cold logic he marked her down 



TODAY IS FOREVER 



with Locke for disposal once her 
purpose was served. Moira had 
been the most satisfactory of the 
four women in Boyle's marital- 
seven. but when he weighed her 
attractions against the possible 
immortality ahead, the compari- 
son did not sway his resolution 
for an instant. 

Moira, like Locke, would have 
to go. 

Y OU'RE sure there was no er- 
ror?” Boyle asked. “You 
couldn’t have been mistaken?” 

“I heard it,” Locke said stub- 
bornly. 

He clenched his fists angrily, 
patently reliving his shock of 
discovery. “I was running a rou- 
tine check on Administration visi- 
phone channels — it's part of my 
worl^as communications techni- 
cian at AL&O — when I ran 
across a circuit that had blown 
its scrambler. Ordinarily I'd have 
replaced the dead unit without 
listening to plain-talk longer than 
was necessary to identify the 
circuit. But by the time I had 
it tagged as a Council channel, 
I'd heard enough from Corneli- 
son and Bissell and Dorand to 
convince me that I owed it to the 
Social Body to hear the rest. 
And now I’m holding a tiger by 
the tail, because I'm subject to 
truth-check. That’s why I came 
to you with this. Boyle. Natural- 
ly, since you are President of 

«4 C 



T ransplanet Enterprises — ” 

“I know,” Boyle cut in, fore- 
stalling digression. Locke’s jol), 
not intrinsically important in it- 
self, still demanded a high degree 
of integrity and left him open to 
serum-and-psycho check, as 
though he were an . actual 
member of AL&O or a politician. 
'Tf anyone knew what you’ve 
overheard, you’d get a compul- 
sory truth-check, admit your 
guilt publicly and take an im- 
prisonmept sentence from the 
Board of Order. But your duty 
came first, of course. Go on.” 

‘‘They were discussing the Al- 
corians’ offer of longevity when 
I cut into the circuit. Bissell and 
Dorand were all for accepting at 
once, but Cornelison pretended 
indecision and had to be coaxed. 
Oh, he came around quickly 
enough: the three of them arc to 
meet Fermiirig and Santikh to- 
morrow morning at nine in the 
AL&O deliberations chamber for 
their injections. You should have 
heard them rationalizing that, 
Boyle. It would have sickened 
you.” 

*‘I know the routine — they’re 
doing it for the good of the Social 
Body, of course. What puzzles 
me is why the Alcorians should 
give away a secret so valuable.” 

“Trojan horse tactics,” Locke 
said flatly. “They claim to have 
arrived at a culture pretty much 
like our own, except for a superi- 



ALAXY SCIINCE FICTION 



or technology and a custom of 
prolonging the lives of admin- 
istrators they find best fitted to 
govern. They’re posing as philan- 
thropists by offering us the same 
opportunity, but actually they’re 
sabotaging our political economy. 
They know that'thc Social Body 
won't stand for the Council ac- 
cepting an immortality restricted 
to itself. That sort of discrimina- 
tion would stir up a brawl that 
might shatter the Weal forever.” 
Deliberately, Boyle fanned the 
younger man's resentment. “Not 
a bad thing for those in power. 
But it is rough on simple mem- 
bers of the Social Body like our- 
selves, isn’t it?” 

“It's criminal conspiracy,” 
Locke said hotly. “They should 
be truth-checked and given life- 
maximum detention. If we took 
this to the Board of Order — ” 
“No. Think a moment and 
you’ll understand why.” 

Boyle had gauged his man, he 
saw. to a nicety. Locke was typi- 
cal of this latest generation, pack- 
«d to the ears with juvenile 
idealism and social consciousness, 
presenting a finished product of 
AL&O’s golden-rule ideology 
that was no more difficult to pre- 
dict than a textbook problem in 
elementary psychology. To a vet- 
eran strategist like Boyle, Locke 
was more than a handy asset; 
he was a tool shaped to respond 
to duty unquestioningly and to 



cupidity not at all. and therefore 
an agent more readily amenable 
than any mercenary could have 
been. 

“But I don't understand.’* 
Locke said, puzzled. “Even Ad- 
ministration and Legislation are 
answerable to Order. It’s the 
Board’s duty to bring them to 
account if necessary.” 

“Administration couldn’t pos- 
sibly confirm itself in power from 
the beginning without the back- 
ing of Order and Legislation,” 
Boyle pointed out. “Cornelison 
and Bisseil and Dorand would 
have to extend the longevity priv- 
ilege to the other two groups, 
don't you see, in order to protect 
themselves. And that means that 
Administrative Council is not 
alone in this thing — it's AL&O as 
a body. If you went to the Board 
of Order with your protest, the 
report would die on the spot. So, 
probably, would you.” 

TTE felt a touch of genuine 
amusement at Locke's slack 
stare of horror. The seed was 
planted; now to see how readily 
the fool would react to a logical 
alternative, and how useful m 
his reaction he might be. 

*T know precisely how you 
feel,” Boyle said. “It goes against 
our conditioned grain to find of- 
ficials venal in this day of com- 
pulsory honesty. But it’s nothing 
new; I’ve met with similar oc- 



TODAY IS FOREVER 



cas!ocks in my own Transplanet 
business, Locke.” 

He might have added that 
those occasions had been of his 
own devising and that they had 
brought him close more than 
once to a punitive truth-clicck. 
The restraining threat of serum- 
and*psycho had kept him for the 
greater part of his adult life in 
the ranks of the merely rich, a 
potential industrial czar balked 
of financial empire by the neces- 
sity of maintaining a strictly 
legal status. 

Locke shook himself like a man 
waking out of nightmare. 

“I’m glad I brought this prob- 
lem to a man of your experience,” 
he said frankly. “I’ve got great 
confidence in your judgment. 
Boyle, something I’ve learned 
parfty from watching you handle 
Transplanct Enterprises and 
partly from talking with Moira.” 

Boyle gave him a speculative 
look, feeling a return of his first 
acid curiosity about Locke and 
Moira. “I had no idea that Moira 
was so confidential outside her 
marital-seven,” he said dryly. 
“She’s not by any chance con- 
sidering a fourth husband, is 
she?” 

“Of course not. Moira’s not un- 
ctfnventiortal. She’s been kind to 
me a few times, yes. but that’s 
only her way of making a prac- 
tical check against the future. 
After all, she’s aware it can’t be 



more than a matter of—** 

He broke off. too embarrassed 
by his unintentional blunder to 
see the fury that discolored the 
older man’s face. 

The iron discipline that per- 
mitted Boyle to bring that fury 
under control left him, even in 
his moment of outrage, with a 
sense of grim pride. He was still 
master of himsalf and of Trans- 
planet Enterprises. Given fools 
enough like this to work with and 
time enough to use them, and he 
would be master of a great deal 
more. Immortality, for instance. 

“She’s quite right to be provi- 
dent. of course,” he said equably. 
“I am getting old. I’m past the 
sixty-mark, and it can't be more 
than another year or two before 
the rejuvenators refuse me fur- 
ther privilege and I’m dropped 
from the marital lists for good.” 
“Damn it, Boyle, I’m sorry,” 
Locke said. “I didn’t mean to of- 
fend you.” 

The potential awkwardness of 
the moment was relieved by a 
soft chime from the annunciator.^ 
The apartment entrance dilated, 
admitting Moira. 

She came to them directly, 
slender and poised and supremely 
confident of her dark young 
beauty, her ermine wrap and 
high-coiled hair glistening with 
stray raindrops that took the 
light like diamonds. The two 
men stood up to greet her, and 



6 < 



CALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



Boyle could not miss the subtle 
feminine response of her to 
Locke’s eager, athletic youth. 

If she's planning to fil! my 
place in her marital-seven with 
this crewcut fool, Boyle thought 
with sudden malice, then she’s in 
for a rude shock. And a Gnal one. 

“I couldn’t enjoy a line of the 
play for thinking of you two 
patriots plotting here in my 
apartment,” Moira said. “But 
then the performance was shat- 
teringly dull, anyway.” 

Her boredom was less than 
convincing. When she had hung 
her wrap in a closet to be aerated 
and irradiated against its next 
wearing, she sat between Boyle 
and Locke with a little sigh of 
anticipation. 

“Have you decided yet what to 
do about this dreadful immortal- 
ity scheme of the Councils, dar- 
lings?” 

B oyle went to the auto-dis- 
penser in a corner and 
brought back three drinks, frost- 
ed and effervescing. They touch- 
ed rims. Moira sipped at her 
glass quietly, waiting in tacit 
agreement with Locke for the 
older man’s opinion. 

“This longevity should be 
available to the Social Body as 
well as to AL&O,” Boyle said. 
“It’s obvious even to non-politi- 
cals like Locke and myself that, 
unless equal privilege is main- 



tained, there’s going to be the 
devil to pay and the Weal will 
suffer. It’s equally obvious that 
the Alcorians’ offer is made with, 
the deliberate intent of under- 
mining our system through dis- 
sension.” 

“To their own profit, of 
course,” Locke put in. “Divide 
and conquer . . .” 

“Whatever is to be done must 
be done quickly,” Boyle said. 
“It would take months to nego- 
tiate a definitive plebiscite, and 
in that time the Alcorians would 
have gone home again without 
treating anyone outside AL&O. 
And there the matter would rest. 
It seems to be up to us to get 
hold of the longevity process our- 
selves and to broadcast it to the 
public.” 

“The good of the Body is the 
preservation of the Weal,” Locke 
said sententiously. “What do you 
think, Moira?” 

Moira touched her lips with a 
delicate pink tongue-tip, consid- 
ering. To Boyle, her process of 
thought was as open as a plain- 
talk , teletape ; immortality for the 
Social Body automatically meant 
immortality for Moira and for 
David Locke. Both young, with 
an indefinite guarantee of life . - , 
“Yes,” Moira said definitely. 
“If some have it. then all should. 
But how, Philip?” 

“You’re both too young to re- 
member this, of course,” Boyle 



TODAY iS FOREVER 



67 



sdid, **but until the 1980 Truth- 
check Act, there was a whole 
field of determinative action ap- 
plicable to cases like this. It's a 
simple enough problem if we 
plan and execute it properly.” 

His confidence was not feigned; 
he had gone over the possibilities 
already with the swift ruthless- 
ness that had made him head of 
Transplanet Enterprises, and the 
prospect of direct action excited 
rather than dismayed him. Until 
now he had skirted the edges of 
illegality with painstaking care, 
never stepping quite over the line 
beyond which he would be liable 
to the disastrous truth-check, but 
at this moment he felt himself in- 
vincible, above retaliation. 

”This present culture is a 
pragmatic compromise with ne- 
ce^ity,” Boyle said. “It survives 
because it answers natural prob- 
lems that couldn’t be solved 
under the old systems. National- 
ism died out. for example, when 
we set up a universal government, 
because everyone belonged to the 
same Social Body and had the 
same Weal to consider. Once we 
realized that the good of the 
Body is more important than 
personal privacy, the truth-check 
made ordinary crime and politi- 
cal machination obsolete. Racial 
antagonisms vanished under de- 
liberate amalgamation. Monog- 
amy gave way to the marital- 
seven, settling the problems of 



ego clash, incompatability, prom- 
iscuity and vice that existed 
before. It also settled the dis- 
proportion between the male and 
female population. 

“But stability is vulnerable. 
Since it never changes, it cannot 
stand against an attack either too 
new or too old for its immediate 
experience. So if we’re going after 
this Alcorian longevity process. 
I'd suggest that we choose a 
method so long out of date that 
there’s no longer a defense against 
it. We' It take it by force!" 

TT amused him to sec Moira 
and Locke accept his specious 
logic without reservation. Their 
directness was all but childlike. 
The thought of engaging person- 
ally in the sort of cloak-and- 
sword adventure carried over by 
the old twentieth-century melo- 
drama tapes was, as he had sur- 
mised, irresistible to them. 

“I can see how you came to be 
head of Transplanet, Boyle.” 
Locke said enviously. “What’s 
your plan, exactly?” 

“I’ve a cottage in the moun- 
tains that will serve as a base of 
operations,” Boyle explained. 
“Moira can wait there for us in 
the morning while you and I 
take a ’copter to AL&O. Accord- 
ing to your information, Corneli- 
son and Bissell and Dorand will 
meet the Alcorians in the delib- 
erations chamber at nine o’clock. 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



We’ll sleep-gas the lot of them, 
take the longevity process and 
go. There’s no formal guard 
at Administration, or anywhere 
else, nowadays. There’ll be no 
possible way of tracing us.” 
“Unless we’re truth-checked,” 
Locke said doubtfully. “If any 
one of us should be pulled in for 
serum-and-psycho, the whole af- 
fair will come out. The Board of 
Order — ” 

“Order won’t know whom to 
suspect,” Boyle said patiently. 
“And they can’t possibly check 
the whole city. They’d have no 
way of knowing even that it was 
someone from this locale. It 
could be anyone, from anywhere.” 

W HEN Locke had gone and 
Moira had exhausted her 
fund of excited small talk. Boyle 
went over the entire plan again 
from inception to conclusion. Ly- 
ing awake in the darkness with 
only the sound of Moira’s even 
breathing breaking the stillness, 
he let his practical fancy run 
ahead. 

Years, decades, generations — 
what were they? To be by rela- 
tive standards undying in a 
world of ephemerae, with literal- 
ly nothing that he might not 
have or do . . . 

He dreamed a dream as old as 
man, of stretching today into 
forever. 

Immortality. 



T he coup next morning was 
no more difficult, though 
bloodier, than Boyle had antici- 
pated. 

At nine shafp. he left David 
Locke at the controls of his heli- 
car on the sun-bright roof land- 
ing of AL&O, took a self-service 
elevator down four floors and 
walked calmly to the deliberation 
chamber where Administrative 
Council met with the visitors 
from Alcor. He was armed for 
any eventuality with an elec- 
tronic freeze-gun, a sleep-capsule 
of anesthetic gas, and a nut-sized 
incendiary bomb capable of set- 
ting afire an ordinary building. 

His first hope of surprising the 
Council in conference was dashed 
in the antechamber, rendering his 
sleep-bomb useless. Dorand was a 
moment late; he came in almost 
on Boyle’s heels, his face blank 
with astonishment at finding an 
intruder ahead of him. 

The freeze-gun gave him no 
time for questions. 

“Quiet,” Boyle ordered, and 
drove the startled Councilor 
ahead of him into the delibera- 
tions chamber. , 

He was just in time. Cornelison 
had one bony arm already bared 
for the longevity injection; Bissell 
sat in tense anticipation of his 
elder’s reaction; the Alcorian, 
Fermiirig, stood at Comelison’s 
side with a glittering hypodermic 
needle in one of his four three- 



TODAY IS FOREVER 



fingered hands. 

For the moment, a sudden 
chill of apprehension touched 
Boyle. There should have been 
two Alcorians. 

“Quiet,” Boyle said again, this 
time to the group. “You, Fer- 
miirig, where is your mate?” 

The Alcorian replaced the hy- 
podermic needle carefully in its 
case, his triangular face totally 
free of any identifiable emotion 
and clasped both primary and 
secondary sets of hands together 
as an Earthman might have 
raised them overhead. His eyes, 
doe -soft and gentle, considered 
Boyle thoughtfully. 

“Santikh is busy with other 
matters,” Fermiirig said. His 
voice was thin and reedy, pre- 
cise of enunciation, but hissing 
faintly on the aspirants. “I am to 
join her later — ” his gentle eyes 
went to the Councilors, gauging 
the gravity of the situation from 
their tensity, and returned to 
Boyle — “if I am permitted.” 
“Good,” Boyle said. 

He snapped the serum case 
shut and tucked it under his 
arm, turning toward the open bal- 
cony windows. “You’re coming 
with me, Fermiirig. You others 
stay as you are.” 

The soft drone of a helicar 
descending outside told him that 
Locke had timed his descent ac- 
curately. Cornelison chose that 
moment to proteat, his wrinkled 



face tight with consternation at 
what he read of Boyle’s intention. 

“We know you, Boyle I You 
can’t possibly escape. The Order- 
men — ” 

Boyle laughed at him. 

“There’ll be no culprit for the 
Ordermen,” he said, “nor any 
witnesses. You’ve wiped out 
ordinary crime with your truth- 
checks and practicalities, Cornel- 
ison, but you’ve made the way 
easiei^ for a man who knows what 
he wants.” 

He pressed the firing stud of 
his weapon. Cornelison fell and 
lay stiffly on the pastel tile. Bis- 
sell and Dorand went down as 
quickly, frozen to temporary 
rigidity. 

Boyle tossed his incendiary 
into the huddle of still bodies 
and shoved the Alcorian forcibly 
through the windows into the 
hovering aircar. 

Locke greeted the alien’s ap- 
pearance with stark .amazement. 
“My God, Boyle, are you madf.’ 
You can’t kidnap — ” 

The dull shock of explosion 
inside the deliberations chamber 
jarred the helicar, throwing the 
slighter Alcorian to the floor and 
staggering Boyle briefly. 

“Get us out of here,” Boyle 
said sharply. He turned the 
freeze-gun on the astounded 
Locke, half expecting resistance 
and fully prepared to meet it. 
“You fool, do you think I’m still 



70 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



playing the childish game I made 
up to keep you and Moira quiet?” 

A pall of greasy black smoke 
poured after them when Locke, 
still stunned by the suddenness 
of catastrophe, put the aircar 
into motion and streaked away 
across the city. 

Boyle, watching the first red 
tongue of flame lick out from the 
building behind, patted the serum 
case and set himself for the next 
step. 

Immortality. 

¥ OCKE took the helicar down 
^ through the mountains, skirt- 
ing a clear swift river that broke 
into tumultous falls a hundred 
yards below Boyle’s cottage, and 
set it down in a flagstone court. 

“Out,” Boyle ordered. 

Moira met them in the spacious 
living room, her pretty face com- 
ical with surprise and dismay. 

“Philip, what’s happened? You 
look so — ” 

She saw the alien then and put 
a hand to her mouth. 

“Keep her quiet while I deal 
with Fermiirig.” Boyle said to 
Locke. “I have no time for argu- 
ment. If either of you gives me 
any trouble . . 

He left the threat to Locke’s 
stunned fancy and turned on the 
Alcorian. 

“Let me have the injection you 
had ready for Cornelison. Now.” 

The Alcorian moved his nar- 

TOOAY 1$ FOREVER 



row shoulders in what might 
have been a shrug. “You are mak- 
ing a mistake. You are not fitted 
for life beyond the normal span.’* 
“I didn’t bring you here to 
moralize,” Boyle said. “If you 
mean to see your mate again, 
Fermiirig, give me the injection!” 
“There was a time in your 
history when force was justifi- 
able,” Fermiirig said. “But that 
time is gone. You are deter- 
mined?” He shook his head so- 
berly when Boyle did not 
answer. “I was afraid so.” 

He took the hypodermic needle 
out of its case, s<jueezed out a 
pale dro^ of liquid and slid the 
point into the exposed vein of 
Boyle’s forearm. 

Boyle, watching the slow de- 
pression of the plunger, asked : 
"How long a ' period will this 
guarantee, in Earth time?” 

“Seven hundred years,” Fer- 
miirig said. He withdrew the in- 
strument and replaced it in its 
case, his liquid glance following 
Boyle’s rising gesture with the 
freeze-gun. “At the end of that 
time, the treatment may be re- 
newed if facilities are available.” 
Immortality! 

“Then I won’t need you any 
more,” Boyle said, and rayed 
him down. “Nor these other two.” 
Locke, characteristically, sprang 
up, and tried to shield hloira 
with his own body. ’ “Boyle, 
what arc you thinking of? You 

. 71 



can't murder us without — " 
“There’s a very effective rapids 
a hundred yards down river,” 
Boyle said. “You’ll both be quite 
satisfactorily dead after going 
through it, I think. Possibly un- 
recognizable, too, though that 
doesn’t matter particularly.” 

He was pressing the firing stud, 
slowly because something in the 
tension of the moment appealed 
to the sadism in his nature, 
when an Orderman’s freeze-beam 
caught him from behind and 
dropped him stiffly beside Fer- 
miirig. 

^T^HE details of his failure 
reached him later in his cell, 
anticlimactically. through a fat 
and pimply jailer inflated to 
bursting with the importance of 
guarding the first murderer in 
his ft*neration. 



“AL&O kept this quiet until 
the Council killing,” the turnkey 
said, “but it had to come out 
when the Board of Order went 
after you. The Alcorians are tele- 
pathic. Santikh led the Order- 
men to your place in the moun- 
tains. Fermiirig guided her.” 

He grinned vacuously at his 
prisoner, visibly pleased to im- 
part information. “Lucky for you 
we don’t have capital punish- 
ment any more. As it is, you’ll 
get maximum, but they can’t 
give you more than life.” 

Lucky? The realization of what 
lay ahead of him stunned Boyle 
with a slow and dreadful certain- 
ty- 

A sentence of life. 

Seven hundred years. 

Not immortality — 

Eternity. 

— ROOI’R DEE 



FORECAST 

Th« October issue ts tt special occasion— the beginning of GALAXY'S third 
yeor— and that means something special in the way of story lineup. 

Theodore Sturgeon leods off with a strange and powerful novella about a 
boy whose age kept shifting unaccountably . . . supported by the first ays- 
peorance in GALAXY of Eric Frank Russell and Hal Clement, each represented 
by a novelet . . . and short stories, Willy ley's science department, and our 
regular feotures . . . every item complete. 

It's a gala issue to stort a year loaded with even more fiction surprises 
thon eur first twol Even the cover is extra unusuol: we call it GALAXY'S 
GALAXY; it will include pictures .of many of the top authors and artists in 
the Science Fiction field attending our Science Fiction Birthday Parly. 

If you don't have a subscription, this is a fine time to send one in. 



72 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



THE MOONS 
OF MARS 



By DEAN EVANS 



lllustroted 

H e seemed a very little boy 
to be carrying so large a 
butterfly net. He swung 
it in his chubby right fist as he 
walked, and at first glance you 
couldn’t be sure if he were carry- 
ing it, or it carrying him. 

He came whistling. All little 
boys whistle. To little boys, whis- 

THE MOONS OF MARS 



Every boy should be able to 
whistle, except, of course, 
Martians. But this one didi 
by WIlUR 

tiing is as natural as breathing. 
However, there was something 
peculiar about this particular 
little boy’s whistling. Or, rather, 
there were two things peculiar, 
but each was related to the other. 

The first was that he was a 
Martian little boy. You could be 
very sure of that, for Earth little 

71 



boys have earlobes while Martian 
little boys do not— and he most 
certainly didn’t. 

The second was the tunc he 
whistled — a somehow familiar 
tune, but one which I should 
have thought not very appealing 
to a little boy. 

“Hi, there,” I said when he 
came near enough. “What’s that 
you’re whistling?” 

He stopped whistling and he 
stopped walking, both at the same 
time, as though he had pulled a 
switch or turned a tap that shut 
them off. Then he lifted his little 
head and stared up into my eyes. 

“ ‘The Calm’,” he said in a 
sober, little-boy voice. 

“The what?*' I asked. 

“From the William Tell Over- 
ture,” he explained, still looking 
up at me. He said it deadpan, and 
his wjide brown eyes never once 
batted. 

“Oh,” I .said. “And where did 
you learn that?” 

“My mother taught me.” 

I blinked at him. He didn’t 
blink back. His round little face 
still held no expression, but if it 
had, I knew it would have 
matched the title of the tune he 
whistled. 

“You whistle very well,” I told 
.him. 

That pleased him. His eyes lit 
up and an almost-smile flirted 
with the comers of his small 
mouth. 



He nodded grave agreement. 

“Been after butterflies, I see. 
ril bet you didn’t get any. This 
is the wrong season.” 

The light in his eyes snapped 
off. “Well, good-by,” he said 
abruptly and very relevantly. 

“Good-by,” I said. 

His whistling and his walking 
started up again in the same 
spot where they had left off. I 
mean the note he resumed on 
was the note which followed the 
one interrupted: and the step he 
took was with the left foot, which 
was the one he would have used 
if I hadn’t stopped him. I fol- 
lowed him with my eyes. An un- 
usual little boy. A most precisely 
mechanical little boy. 

When he was almost out of 
sight, I took off after him, won- 
dering. 

The house he weht into was 
over in that crumbling section 
which forms a curving boundary 
line, marking the limits of those 
frantic and ugly original mine- 
workings made many years ago 
by the early colonists. It seems 
that someone had told someone 
who had told someone else that 
here, a mere twenty feet beneath 
the surface, was a vein as wide as 
a house and as long as a ffsher- 
man’s aliW, of pure — pure, njind 
you — gold. 

Back in those days, to be a 
colonist meant to be a rugged in- 
dividual. And to be a rugged 



74 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



individual meant to not give a 
damn one way or another. And 
to not give a damn one way or 
another meant to make one hell 
of a mess on the placid face of 
Mars. 

There had not been any gold 
found, of course, and now, for the 
most part, the mining shacks so 
hastily tljrown up were only 
fever scars of a sickness long gone 
and little remembered. A few of 
the houses were still occupied, 
like the one into which the Mar- 
tian bo^had just disappeared. 

So his mother had taught him 
the William Tell Overture, had 
she? That tickling thought made 
me chuckle as I stood before the 
ramshackle building. And then, 
suddenly, I stopped chuckling 
and began to think, instead, of 
something quite astonishing: 

How had it been possible for 
her to teach, and for him to 
whistle? 

Al} Martian!^ are as tone-deaf 
as a bucket of lead. 

I w'cnt up three slab steps and 
rapped loudly on the weather- 
beaten door. 

womaw who faced me may 
-*• have been as young as twenty- 
two, but she didn’t look it. That 
shocked look, which comes with 
the first realization that youth 
has slipped quietly away down- 
stream in the middle of the night, 
and left nothing but frightening 



rocks of middle age to show cold 
and gray in the hard light of 
dawn, was like the validation 
stamp of Time itself in her wide, 
wise eyes. And her voice wasn’t 
young any more, either. 

“Well? And what did I do 
now?” 

“I beg your pardon?” I said. 

“You’re Mobile Security, aren’t 
you? Or is that badge you’re 
wearing just something to cover 
a hole in your shirt?” 

“Yes, I’m Security, but does it 
have to mean something?” I 
asked. “All I did was knock on 
your door.” 

“I heard it.” Her lips were 
curled slightly at one corner. 

I worked up a smile for her and 
let her see it for a few seconds 
before I answered: “As a matter 
of fact, I don’t want to see you 
at all. I didn’t know you lived 
here and I don’t know who you 
are. I’m not even interested in 
who you are. It’s the little boy 
who just went in here that I was 
interested in. The little Martian 
boy. I mean.” 

Her eyes spread as though 
somebody had put fingers on her 
lids at the outside corners and 
then cruelly jerked them apart. 

“Come in,” she almost gasped. 

I followed her. When I leaned 
back against the plain door, it 
closed protestingly. I looked 
around. It wasn’t much of a 
room, but then you couldn’t ex- 



THE MOONS OF MARS 



75 



pect much of a room in a little 
ghost of a place like this. A few 
knickknacks of the locality stood 
about on two tables and a shelf, 
bits of rock with streak-veins of 
fused corundum: not bad if you 
like the appearance of squeezed 
blood. 

There were two chairs and a 
large table intended to match the 
chairs, and a rough divan kind 
of thing made of discarded crat- 
ings which had probably been 
hauled here from the Interna- 
tional Spaceport, ten miles to the 
West. In the back wall of 
the room was a doorway that led 
dimly to somewhere else in 
the house. Nowhere did I see the 
little boy. I looked once again at 
the woman. 

“What about him?” she whis- 
pered. 

Her ^yes were still startled. 

I smiled reassuringly. “Noth- 
fiig, lady, nothing. Tm sorry I 
upset you. I was just being nosy 
if all, and that's the truth of it. 
You see, the little boy went by 
me a while ago and he was whis- 
tling. He whistles remarkably 
well. I asked him what the name 
of the tune was and he told me 
it was the ‘Calm’ from William 
Tell. He also told me his mother 
had taught him.” 

Her eyes hadn’t budged from 
mine, hadn’t flickered. They 
might have been bright, moist 
marbles glued above her cheeks. 



She said one word only: 
“Well?” 

“Nothing,** I answered. “Ex- 
cept that Martians are supposed 
to be tone-deaf, aren’t they? It’s 
something lacking in their sense 
of hearing. Sio when I heard this 
little boy, and saw he was a Mar- 
tian, and when he told me his • 
mother had taught him — ” I 
shrugged and laughed va little. 
“Like I said before, I guess I got 
just plain nosy.” 

She nodded. “We a^jree on that 
last part.” 

Perhaps it was her eyes. Or 
perhaps it was the tone of her 
voice. Or perhaps, and more 
simply, it was her attitude in gen- 
eral. But whatever it was, I sud- 
denly felt that, nosy or not, I 
was being treated shabbily. 

“I would like to speak to the 
Martian lady.” I said. 

“There isn’t any Martian lady.’* 
“There has to be, doesn’t 
there?” I said it with little sharp 
prickers on the words. 

But she did, too: “Z>oes there?'* 

I gawked at her and she stared 
back. And the stare she gave me 
was hard and at the same time 
curiously defiant — as though she 
would dare me to go on with it. 
As though she figured I hadn't 
the guts. ^ 

For a moment, I just blinked 
stupidly at her, as I had 
blinked stupidly at the little boy 
when he told me his mother had 



GAtAXY SCIENCE FtCTlOM 



taught him how to whistle. And 
then — after what seemed to me a 
very long while — I slowly tum- 
bled to what she meant. 

Her eyes were telling me that 
the little Martian boy wasn’t a 
little Martian boy at all, that he 
was cross-breed, a little chap who 
had a Martian father and a hu- 
man. Earthwoman mother. 

It was a startling thought, for 
there just aren’t any such mixed 
marriages. Or at least I had 
thought there weren’t. Physically, 
spiritally, mentally, or by any 
other standard you can think of, 
compared to a human male the 
Martian isn’t anything you’d 
want around the house. 

I finally said : “So that is why 
he is able to whistle.” 

She didn’t answer. Even before 
I spoke, her eyes had seen the 
correct guess which had probably 
flashed naked and astounded in 
my own eyes. And then she swal- 
lowed with a labored breath that 
went trembling down inside her. 

“There isn’t anything to be 
ashamed of,” I said gently. “Back 
on Earth there’s a lot of mix- 
tures, you know. Some people 
even claim there’s no such thing 
as a pure race. I don’t know, but 
I guess we all started somewhere 
and intermarried plenty since.” 
She nodded. Somehow her eyes 
didn’t look defiant any more. 
“Where’s his father?” I asked. 
“H-he’s dead.” 



“I’m sorry. Are you all right? 
I mean do you get along okay 
and everything, now that . . .?” 

I stopped. I wanted to ask her 
if she was starving by slow de- 
grees and needed help. Lord 
knows the careworn look about 
her didn’t show it was luxurious 
living she was doing — at least not 
lately. 

“Look,” I said suddenly. 
“Would you like to go home to 
Earth? I could fix — ” 

But that was the wrong ap- 
proach. Her eyes snapped and her 
shoulders stiffened angrily and 
the words that ripped out of her 
mouth were not coated with 
honey. 

“Get the hell out of here, you 
fool!" 

I blinked again. When the 
flame in her eyes suddenly seemed 
to grow even hotter, I turned on 
my heel and went to the door. 
I opened it, went out on the top 
slab step. I turned back to close 
the dcK>r — and looked straight 
into her eyes. 

She was crying, but that didn’t 
mean exactly what it Icioked like 
it might mean. Her right hand 
had the door edge gripped tightly 
and she was swinging it with all 
the strength she possessed. And 
while I still stared, the door 
slammed savagely into the casing 
with a shock that jarred the slab 
under my feet, and flying splin- 
ters from the rotten woodwork 



THE MOONS OF MARS 



8timg my flinching cheeks. 

I shrugged and turned around 
and went down the steps. “And 
that is the way it goes,” I mut- 
tered disgustedly to myself. 
Thinking to be helpful with the 
firewood problem, you give a 
woman a nice sharp axe and she 
immediately puts it to use — on 
you. 

1 looked up just in time to 
avoid running into a spread- 
legged man who was standing 
motionless directly in the middle 
of the sand-path in front of the 
door. His hands were on his hips 
and there was something in his 
eyes which might have been a 
leer. 

‘■■pi-fT-LED a howler in there, 
eh, mate?” he said. He 
chuckled hoarsely in his throat. 
“Not being exactly deaf, I heard 
the tail end of it.” His chuckle 
was a lewd thing, a thing usually 
reserved — if it ever was reserved 
at all — for the mens’ rooms of 
some of the lower class dives. 
And then he stopped chuckling 
and frowned instead and said 
complainingly : 

“Regular little spitfire, ain’t 
she? I ask you now, wouldn't you 
think a gal which had got herself 
in a little jam, so to speak, would 
be more reasonable — ” 

Hifi words chopped short and 
he almost choked on the final 
unuttered syllable. His glance had 




dropped to my badge and the 
look on his face was one of 
startled surprise. 



“1 — ” he said. 

I cocked a frown of my own at 
him. 

“Well, so long, mate," he 
grunted, and spun around and 
dug his toes in the sand and was 
away. I stood there staring at his 
rapidly disappearing form for a 
few moments and then looked 
back once more at the house. A 
tattered cotton curtain was just 
swinging to in the dirty, sand- 
blown window. That seemed to 
mean the woman had been watch- 
ing. I sighed, shrugged again and 
went away myself. 

When I got back to Security 



7 « 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



-iaiiiig 




r 



) 



Headquarters, I went to the file 
and began to rifle through pic- 
tures. I didn't find the woman, 
but I did find the man. 

He was a killer named Harry 
Sniythe. 

I took the picture into the 
Chief’s office and laid it on his 
desk, waited for him to look down 
at it and study it for an instant, 
and then to look back up to me. 
Which he did. 

“So?” he said. 

“Wanted, isn’t he?” 

He nodded. “But a lot of good 
that’ll do. He’s holed up some- 
where back on Earth.” 

“No,” I said. “He’s right here. 
I just saw him.” 

“What?” He nearly leaped out 



of his chair. 

“I didn’t know who he was at 
first,” I said. “It wasn’t until I 
looked in the files — ” 

He cut me off. His hand darted 
into his desk drawer and pulled 
out an Authority Card. He shoved 
the card at me. He growled: 
‘‘Kill or capture. I’m not espe- 
cially fussy which. Just get him!” 
I nodded and took the card. 
As I left the office, I was thinking 
of something which struck me as 
somewhat more than odd. 

I had idly listened to a little 
half-breed Martian boy whistling 
part of the William Tell Over- 
ture. and it had led me t^ a 
wanted killer named Harry 
Smythc. 



THE MOONS OF MARS 



79 



U NDERSTANDABLY, Mr. 

Smythe did not produce him- 
self on a silver platter. I spent 
the remainder of the afternoon 
trying to get a lead on him and 
got nowhere. If he was hiding in 
any of the places I went to, then 
he was doing it with mirrors, for 
on Mars an Authority Card is the 
big stick than which there is no 
bigger. Not solely is it a warrant, 
it is a commandeer of help from 
anyone to whom it is presented; 
and wherever 1 showed it I got 
respecf. 

I got instant attention. I got 
even more: those wraithlike trem- 
blings in the darker corners of 
saloons, those corners where light 
never seems quite to penetrate. 
You don’t look into those. Not if 
you’re anything more than a 
ghoul, you don’t. 

Not finding him wasn't espe- 
cially alarming. What was alarm- 
ing, though, was not finding the 
Earthwoman .and her little half- 
breed Martian son when I went 
back to the tumbledown shack 
where they lived. It was empty. 
She had moved fast. She hadn’t 
even left me a note saying 
good-by. 

That night 1 went into the 
Great Northern desert to the 
Haremheb Reservation, where 
the Martians still try to act like 
Martians. 

It was Festival night, and when 
I got there they were doing the 

99 



dance to the two moons. At times 
like this you want to leave 
the Martians alone. With that 
thought in mind, I pinned my 
Authority Card to my lapel di- 
rectly above my badge, and went 
through the gates. 

The huge circle fire was burn- 
ing and the dance was in progress. 
Briefly, this can be described as 
something like the ceremonial 
dances put on centuries ago by 
the qpcient aborigines of North 
America. There was one impor- 
tant exception, however. Instead 
of a central fire, the Martians 
dig a huge circular trench and fill 
it with dried roots of the belu 
tree and set fire to it. Being pitch- 
like, the gnarled fragments burn 
for hours. Inside this ring sit the 
spectators, and in the exact center 
are the dancers. For music, they 
use the drums. 

The dancers were both men and 
women and they were as naked 
as Martians can get, but their 
dance was a thing of grace and 
loveliness. For an instant — before 
anyone observed me — I stood mo- 
tionless and watched the sinu- 
ously undulating movements, and 
I thought, as 1 have often thought 
before, that this is the one thing 
the Martians can still do beauti- 
fully. Which, in a sad sort of 
way, is a commentary on the way 
things have gone since the first 
rocket-blasting ship set down on 
these purple sands. 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



I felt the knife dig my spine. 
Carefully I turned around and 
pointed my index finger to my 
badge and card. Bared teeth glit- 
tered at me in the flickering light, 
and then the knife disappeared 
as quickly as it had come. 

“Wahanhk,” I said. “The Chief. 
Take me to him.” 

The Martian turned, went 
away from the half-light of the 
circle. He led me some yards off 
to the north to a swooping -tent. 
Then he stopped, pointed. 

“Wahanhk,” he said. 

I watched him slip away. 

Wahanhk is an old Martian. 
I don’t think any Martian before 
him has ever lived so long — and 
doubtless none after him will, 
either. His leathery, almost pur- 
ple-black skin was rough and 
had a charred look about it, and 
up around the eyes were little 
plaits and folds that had the 
appearance of being done delib- 
erately by a Martian sand-artist. 

“Good evening.” I said, and 
sat down before him and crossed 
my legs. 

He nodded slowly. His old eyes 
went to my badge. 

From there they went to the 
Authority Card. 

“Power sign of the Earthmen,” 
he muttered. 

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I’m 
not here for trouble, I know as 
well as you do that, before to- 
night is finished, more than half 

the moons of MAiS 



of your men and women will be 
drunk on illegal whiskey,” 

He didn’t reply to that. 

“And I don’t give a damn about 
it,” I added distinctly. 

His eyes came deliberately up 
to mine and stopped there. He 
said nothing. He waited. Outside, 
the drums throbbed, slowly at 
first, then moderated in tempo. 
It was like the throbbing — or sob- ' 
bing, if you prefer — of the old, 
old pumps whose shafts go so 
tirelessly down into the planet 
for such pitifully thin streams of 
water. 

“I’m looking for an Earth- 
woman,” I said. “This particular 
Earthwoman took a Martian for 
a husband.” 

“That is impossible,” he 
grunted bitterly. 

“I would have said so. too,*^ 

I agreed. “Until this afternoon, 
that is.” 

His old, dried lips began to 
purse and wrinkle. 

“I met her little son,” I went 
on. “A little semi-human boy 
with Martian features. Or, if you 
want to turn it around and look 
at the other side, a little Martian 
boy who whistles.” 

His teeth went together with a 
snap. 

I nodded and smiled. “You 
know who Tm talking about.” 

For a long long while he didn’t 
answer. His eyes remained un- 
blinking on mine and if, earlier 

n 



Sn the day, I had thought the 
little boy’s face was expression- 
less, then I didn’t completely ap- 
preciate the meaning of that 
word. Wahanhk’s face was more 
than expressionless: it was simply 
blank. 

“They disappeared from the 
shack they were living in,” I 
said. “They went in a hurry — a 
very great hurry.’* 

That one he didn’t answer,' 
either. 

“I would like to know where 
she is.” 

“Why?” His whisper was brittle. 

“She’s not in trouble,” I told 
him quickly. “She’s not wanted. 
Nor her child, either. It's just that 
] have to talk to her.” 

“Why?” 

1 pulled out the file photo of 
Harry Smythe and handed it 
^across to him. His wrinkled hand 
took it, pinched it, held it up 
close to a lamp hanging from one 
of the ridge poles. His eyes 
squinted at it for a long moment 
before he handed it back. 

“I have never seen this Earth- 
Si»an,” he said. 

“All right,” I answered. “There 
wasn’t anything that made me 
think *you had. The point is that 
he knows the woman. It follows, 
naturally, that she might know 
him.” 

“This one is wanted?" His old, 
broken tones went up slightly on 
the last word. 



I nodded. “For murder.” 

“Murder.” He spat the word. 
“But not for the murder of a 
Martian, eh? Martians are not 
that important any more.” His 
old eyes hated me with an in- 
tensity I didn’t relish. 

“You said that, old man, not 
I.” 

A little time went by. The 
drums began to beat faster. They 
were rolling out a lively tempo 
now, a tempo you could put 
music to. 

He said at last: “1 do not know 
where the woman is. Nor the 
child.” 

He looked me straight in the 
eyes when he said it — and almost 
before the words were out of his 
mouth, they were whipped in 
again on a drav.;n-back, great, 
sucking breath. For, somewhere 
outside, somewhere near that 
dancing circle, in perfect time 
with the lively beat of the drums, 
somebody was whistling. 

It was a clear, clean sound, a 
merry, bright, happy sound, as 
sharp and as precise as the thrust 
of a razor through a piece of 
soft yellow cheese. 

“In your teeth, Wahanhk! 
Right in your teeth!” 

He only looked at me for an- 
other dull instant and then his 
eyes slowly closed and his hand^ 
folded together in his lap. Being 
caught in a lie only bores a 
Martian. 



•2 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



I got up aad went out of the 
tent. 

woman never heard me 
approach. Her eyes were to- 
ward the flaming circle and the 
dancers within, and, too, I sup- 
pose, to her small son who was 
somewhere in that circle with 
them, whistling. She leaned 
against the bole of a belu tree 
with her arms down and slightly 
curled backward around it. 

“That’s considered bad luck,” 
I said. 

Her head jerked around with 
my words, reflected flames from 
the circle fire still flickering in her 
eyes. 

“That's a belu tree,” I said. 
“Embracing it like that is like 
looking for a ladder to walk un- 
der. Or didn’t you know?” 

“Would it make any differ- 
ence?” She spoke softly, but 
the words came to me above the 
drums and the shouts of the 
dancers. “How much bad luck 
can you have in one lifetime, 
anyway?” 

I ignored that. “Why did you 
pull out of that shack? I told you 
you had nothing to fear from 
me.” 

She didn’t answer. 

“I’m looking for the man you 
saw me talking with this morn- 
ing,” I went on. “Lady, he’s 
wanted. And this thing on my 
lapel is an Authority Card. As- 



suming you know what it means, 
I’m asking you where he is.” 
“What man?” Her words were 
flat. 

“His name is Harry Smythe.” 
If that meant anything to her, 
I couldn’t tell. In the flickering 
light from the fires, subtle changes 
in Expression weren’t easily de- 
tected. 

“Why should I care about an 
Earthman? My husband was a 
Martian. And he’s dead, see? 
Dead. Just a Martian. Not fit for 
anything, like all Martians. Just 
a bum who fell in love with an 
Earthwoman and had the guts 
to marry her. Do you under- 
stand? So somebody murdered 
him for it. Ain’t that pretty? Ain’t 
that something to make you 
throw back your head and be 
proud about? Well, ain’t it? And 
let me tell you. Mister, whoever 
it was. I’ll get him. I'll him!” 
1 could see her face now, all 
right. It was a twisted, tortured 
thing that writhed at me in its 
agony. It was small yellow teeth 
that bared at me in viciousness. 
It was eyes that brimmed with 
boiling, bubbling hate like a ladle 
of molten steel splashing down on 
bare, white flesh. Or, simply, it 
was the face of a woman who 
wanted to kill the killer of her 
man. 

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. 
Even though the noise of the 
dance and the dancers was loud 



THE MOONS or MAtS 



enough to commend the attention 
and the senses. I could still hear 
her quiet sobbing, and I could see 
the heaving of the small, thin 
shoulders. 

And I knew then the reason for 
rfd Wahanhk’s bitterness when 
he had said to me. “But not for 
the murder of a Martian, eh? 
Martians are not that important 
any more.” 

What I said then probably 
sounded as weak as it really was: 
“I’m sorry, kid. But look, just 
staking out in that ol^ shack of 
yours and trying to pry informa- 
tion out of the type of men who 
drifted your way — well, I mean 
there wasn't much sense in that, 
now was there?” 

1 put an arm around her shoul- 
ders. “He must have been a pretty 
nice guy,” I said. “I don’t think 
you’^ have married him if he 
wasn’t.” 

I stopped. Even in my own 
ears, my words sounded comfort- 
less. I looked up, over at the 
flaming circle and at the sweat- 
laved ' dancers within it. The 
sound of the drums was a wild 
cacaphonous tattoo now, a rattle 
of speed and savagery combined; 
and those who moved to its fre- 
netic jabberings were not dancers 
any more, but only frenzied, jerk- 
ing figurines on the strings of a 
puppeteer gone mad. 

I looked down again at the 
woman. “Your little boy and his 



butterfly net,” I said softly. “In 
a season when no butterflies can 
be found. What was that for? 
Was he part of the plan, too, 
and the net just the alibi that 
gave him a passport to wander 
where he chose? So that he could 
listen, pick up a little information 
here, a little there?” 

She didn’t answer. She didn’t 
have to answer. My gues.ses can 
be as good as anybody’s. 

After a long while she looked 
up into my eyes. “His name was 
Tahily,” she said. “He had the 
secret. He knew where the gold 
vein was. And soon, in a couple 
of years maybe, when all the 
prospectors were gone and he 
knew it would be safe, hr was 
going to stake a claim and go 
after it. For us. For the three of 
us.” 

I sighed. There wasn’t, isn’t, 
never will be any gold on this 
planet. But who in the name of 
God could have the heart to ruin 
a dream like that? 

N ext day I followed the little 
boy. He left the reservation 
in a cheery frame of mind, his 
whistle sounding loud and clear 
on the thin morning air. He 
didn’t go in the direction of town, 
but the other way — toward the 
ruins of the ancient Temple City 
of the Moons. I watched his 
chubby arm and the swinging of 
the Hg butterfly net on the end 



•4 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



of that arm. Then I followed 
along in his sandy tracks. 

U was desert country, of course. 
There wasn’t any chance of tail- 
ing him without his knowledge 
and I knew it. I also knew that 
before long he’d know it, too. 
And he did — but he didn’t let me 
know he did until we came to the 
rag-cliffs, those filigree walls of 
stone that hide the entrance to 
the valley of the two moons. 

Once there, he paused and 
placed his butterfly net on a rock 
ledge and then calmly sat down 
and took off his shoes to dump 
the sand while he waited for me. 

“Well,'* I said. “Good morn- 
ing.’’ 

He looked up at me. He nodded 
politely. Then he put on his shoes 
again and got to his feet. 

“You’ve been following me,” 
he said, and his brown eyes stased 
accusingly into mine. 

“I have?” 

“That isn’t an honorable thing 
to do.” he said very gravely. “A 
gentleman doesn’t do that to 
another gentleman.” 

I didn’t smile. “And what 
would you have me do about it?” 

“Stop following me, of course, 
sir.” 

“Very well,” I said. “I won't 
follow you any more. Will that 
be satisfactory?” 

“Quite, sir.” 

Without another word, he 
picked up his butterfly net and 



disappeared along a path that led 
through a rock crevice. Only then 
did I allow myself to grin. It 
was a sad and pitying and af- 
fectionate kind of grin. 

I ^at down and did with my 
shoes as he had done. There 
wasn’t any hurry; I knew where 
he was going. There could only 
be one place, of course — the city 
of Deimos and Phobos. Other 
than that he had no choice. And 
I thought I knew the reason for 
his going. ” 

Several times in the past, there 
have been men who, bitten with 
tiie fever of an idea that some- 
where on this red planet there 
must be gold, have done pros- 
pecting among the ruins of the 
old temples. He had probably 
heard that there were men there 
now, and he was carrying out 
with the thoroughness of his pre- 
cise little mind the job he had 
set himself of finding the killer 
of his daddy. 

I took a short-cut over the rag- 
cliffs and went down a winding, 
sand-worn path. The temple 
stones stood out barren and dry- 
looking, tike breast bones from 
the desiccated carcass of an ani- 
mal. For a moment I stopped 
and stared down at tiie ruins. 1 
didn't see the boy. He was some- 
where down tliere, though, still 
swinging his butterfly net and, 
probably, still whistling. 

I started up once more. 



THE MOONS OF MARS 



•S 



And then I heard it — a shrill 
blast of sound in an octave of 
urgency; a whistle, sure, but a 
warning one. 

I stopped in my tracks from ’ 
the shock of it. Yes, 1 knew from 
whom it had come, all right, ^ut 
I didn’t know why. 

And then the whistle broke off 
short. One instant it was in the 



air, shrieking with a message. The 
next it was gone. But it left tail- 
ings, like the echo of a death cry 
slowly floating back over the dead 
body of the creature that uttered 
it. 

I dropped behind a fragment 
of the rag-cliff. A shot barked 
out angrily. Splinters of the rock 
crazed the morning air. 




GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



The little boy screamed. Just 
once. 

I waited.' There was a long si- 
lence after that. Then, finally, I 
took off my hat and threw it out 
into the valley. The gun roared 
once more. This time I placed 
it a little to the left below me. 
I took careful sighting on the 
hand that held that gun — and I 
didn’t miss it. 

It was Harry, Smythe, of course. 
When I reached him. he had the 
injured hand tucked tightly in 
the pit of his other arm. There 
was a grim look in his eyes and 
he nodded as I approached him. 

“Good shooting, mate. Should 
be a promotion in it for you. 
Shooting like that, I mean.” 

“That’s nice to think about,” 
I said. “Where’s the boy? I owe 
him a little something. If he 
hadn’t whistled a warning, you 
could have picked me off neat.’* 

“I would.” He nodded calmly. 

“Where is he?” 

“Behind the rock there. In that 
little alcove, sort of.” He indi- 
cated with his chin. 

I started forward. I watched 
him, but I went toward the rock. 

“Just a minute, mate.” 

I stopped. I didn’t lower my 
gun. 

“That bloody wench we spoke 
about yesterday. You know, out 
in front of that shack? Well, just 
a thought, of course, but if you 
pull me in and if I get it, what’ll 



become of her, do you suppose? 
Mean to say; I couldn’t support 
her when I‘ was dead, could I?” 
“Support her?” Surprise jumped 
into ' my voice. 

“What I said. She’s my wife, 
you know. Back on Earth, I 
mean. I skipped out on her a 
few years back, but yesterdaj^ I 
was on my way to looking her 
up when you—” 

“She didn’t recognize the name 
Harry Smythe,” I said coldly. 
“I’m afraid you’ll have to think 
a little faster.” 

“Of course she didn’t! How 
could she? That ain’t my name. 
What made you think it was?” 
Bright beads of sweat sparkled 
on his forehead, and his lips had 
that frantic looseness of lips not 
entirely under control. 

“You left her,” I grunted. “But 
you followed her across space 
anyway. Just to tell her you were 
sorry and you wanted to come 
back. Is that it?” 

“Well — ” His eyes were calcu- 
lating. “Not the God’s honest, 
mate, no. I didn’t know she was 
here. Not at first. But there was 
this Spider, see? This Martian. 
His name was Tahily and he used 
to hang around the saloons and 
he talked a lot, see? Then’s when 
I knew . , 

“So it was you who killed him,” 
I said. “One murder wasn’t 
enough back on Earth; you had 
to pile them up on the planets.” 



THE MOONS OF MARS 



1 covild feel something begin to 
churn inside of me. 

“Wait! Sure, I knocked off the 
Martian. But a fair fight, see? 
That Spider jumped my claim. 
A fair fight it was, and anybody’d 
done the same. But even without 
that, he had it coming anyway, 
wouldn’t you say? Bigamist and 
all that, you know? I mean mar- 
rying a woman already married.” 

His lips were beginning to slob- 
ber. I watched them with revul- 
aion in my stomach. 

“Wouldn’t you say, mate? Just 
• lousy, stinking Martian, 1 
mean!” 

I swallowed. I turned away and 
went around the rock and looked 
down. One look was enough. 
Blood was running down the 
cheek of the prone little Martian 
boy, and it was coming from his 
mouti). Then I turned back to the 
shaking man. 

“Like I say. mate! I mean, 
what would you’ve done in my 
place? Whistling always did drive 
■ne crazy. I can't stand it. A 
phobia, you know. People suffer 
from phobias!” 

“What did you do?” I took 
tirree steps toward him. I felt my 
lips straining back from my 
teeth. 

“Walt now, mate! Like I say. 
It’s a phobia. I can’t stand whis- 
tiing. It makes me suffer — ” 

“So you cut out his tongue?” 
, 1 didn't wait for his answer. 1 



couldn’t wait. While I was still 
calm. 1 raised my gun on his 
trembling figure. I didn't put the 
gun up again until his body 
stopped twitching and his fingers 
stopped clawing in the sands. 

■J^ROM the desk to the outside 
door, the hospital corridor 
runs just a few feet. But I’d have 
known her at any distance. I 
sighed, got to my feet and met 
her halfw'ay. 

She stopped before me and 
stared up into my eyes. She must 
have run all the way when she 
got my message, for although she 
was standing as rigid as a pole 
in concrete, something of her ex- 
haustion showed in her eyes. 

"Tell me,” she said in a panting 
w'hisper. 

“Your boy is going to be okay.** 
I put my arm around her. “Ev- 
erything's under control. The doc- 
tors say he’s going to live and 
pull through and . . 

I stopped. I wcHidered what 
words I was going to use when 
no words that I had ever heard 
in my life would be the right ones. 

"Tell me.” She pulled from my 
grasp and tilted her head so that 
she could look up into my eyes 
and read them like a printed 
page. *‘7*e// me!*’ 

“He cut out the boy’s — hr said 
he couldn’t stand whistling. It 
was a phobia, he claime<j. Eight 
bullets cured his phobia, i’ any.* 



m 



6AIAXT SCIENCE FICTION 



“He cut out what?” 

"Your son's tongue.” 

I put my arm around her again, 
but it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t 
cry out, she didn’t slump. Her 
head did go down and her eyes 
did blink once or twice, but that 
was all. 

"He was the only little boy on 
Mars who could whistle,” she 
said. 

All of the emotion within her 
was somehow squeezed into those 
few words. 

¥ COULDN'T get it out of my 
^ mind for a long while. I used 
to lie in bed and think of it 
somewhat like this: 

There was this man, with his 
feet planted in the purple sands, 
and he looked up into the night 
sky when the moon called Dei- 
mos was in perigee, and he 
studied it. And he said to him> 
self. "Well. I shall write a book 
and I shall say in this book that 
the moon of Mars is thus and so. 
And I will be accurately describ- 
ing it. for in truth the moon is 
thus and so.” 

And on the other side of the 
planet there was another man. 
And he, too, looked up into the 
night sky. And he began to study 
the moon called Phobos. And be. 
too. decided to write a book. And 
he knew he could accurately de- 



scribe the moon of Mars, for his 
own eyes had told him it looked 
like thus and so. And his own 
eyes did not lie. 

I thought of it in a manner 
somewhat like that. I could tell 
the woman that Harry Smythe, 
her first husband, was the man 
who had killed Tahily, the Mar- 
tian she loved. I could tell her 
Smythe had killed him in a fair 
fight because the Martian had 
tried to jump a claim. And her 
heart would be set to rest, for 
she would know that the whole 
thing was erased and done with, 
at last. 

Or. on the other hand, I could 
do what I eventually did do. 1 
could tell her absolutely nothing, 
in the knowledge that that way 
she would at least have the 
strength of hate with which to 
sustain herself through the years 
of her life. The strength of her 
hate against this man, whoever 
he might be, plus the chill joy of 
anticipating the day — maybe not 
tomorrow, but some day — when, 
like the dream of finding gold 
on Mars, she'd finally track him 
down and kill him. 

I couldn’t leave her without a 
reason for living. Her man was 
dead and her son would never 
whistle again. She had to have 
something to live for. didn't she? 

—DEAN EVANS 



TMi MOONS OF MARS 







' SPACE TRAVEL BY 1960? 

T his issue’s cover is some- 
thing of “instant recogni* 
tion” to science fiction 
readers — it shows a spaceship 
takeoff. Science fiction readers 



would have recognized such a 
picture even twenty years ago. 
Now, however, liie same picture 
might be on the cover of any 
magazine and the majority of 
the readers of that magazine 
would know what it is supposed 




9Q 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



to show. That is vast progress. 

Fortunately, that is not the 
only kind of progress that has 
been made during the last two 
decades. In 1932^ one could only 
prophesy that rocket research 
would eventually be taken up on 
a large scale, that it would be 
a long and difficult task, but that 
the goal of the manned spaceship 
would be at the end of the road. 
Now large-scale rocket research 
is going oh, formerly “incredible 
feats” have been accomplished, 
and the goal of the spaceship 
appears so near that it will need 
only one concerted and serious 
effort to reach it. 

After all, even though nobody 
has yet built a manned spaceship, 
space has already been pierced. 
During lectures I often draw a 
segment of a circle on the black- 
board. representing the surface 
of the Earth. Then I draw a simi- 
lar line at a scale distance of 60 
miles above the first, which is 
the altitude where the air has 
become so attenuated that no 
control surface would work any 
more, even at speeds of several 
miles per second. That altitude 
has been surpassed by dozens 
of V-2, Aerobee and Viking rock- 
ets. Then I draw another line 
at a scale distance of 1 10 miles, 
where the missile as a whole no 
longer encounters detectable air 
resistance and where “space be- 
gins.” That height has been ex- 



ceeded by several V-2 rockets, 
at least one Viking and, of course, 
the WAC-Corporal which formed 
the “upper stage” of a V-2 in 
1949 and soared to a peak alti- 
tude of 250 miles. 

Finally, I add one line quite 
near the ground. The scale dis- 
tance is 60,000 feet, which is the 
altitude where .air pressure has 
fallen so low that the blood of a 
pilot exposed to it would begin 
to boil — as you know, the lower 
the air pressure, the lower the 
boiling point of a given liquid. 
Anything which is to be piloted 
above 60,000 feet, therefore, has 
to have what might be called 
“full spaceship equipment” as far 
as pilot comfort is concerned. 
And rocket-propelled aircraft has 
been piloted to beyond 60,000 
feet. 

It is easy to see that the com- 
plex of problems represented by 
the concept of the manned space- 
ship is no longer completely un- 
known territory. Deep inroads 
have been made into it from var- 
ious directions for different pur- 
poses. High altitude research has 
furnished much basic informa- 
tion. Missile design has produced 
what can be called “spaceship 
instruftientation.” High -altitude 
fighter design has attached and 
obviously solved the problem of 
the spaceship cabin. 

All right, then, provided that 
the necessary concerted effort is 



FOR YOUR INFORMATION 



♦I 



made, and the money is provided, 
when will we get the first manned 
spaceship? If the money is pro- 
vided soon, I think that it is a 
safe answer to say: in sibout ten 
years. 

course, the first spaceship 
won’t go to Mars or even to 
the Moon. In fact, we probably 
won’t be able to take off directly 
for the Moon or for Mars for 
many years to come. As far as 
th^ clearly foreseeable future is 
4 concerned, such trips will have 
to start from a space station 
which circles the Earth. The voy- 
age of the first spaceship, as I 
have repeatedly said, will go lit- 
erally nowhere. It will be a verti- 
cal takeoff from base, followed 
by a tilt in an easterly direction 
so tli^t the ship will travel along 
an ellipse around the Earth. The 
captain will stay “up” until all 
the service tests have been com- 
pleted, the observing program 
carried out, or until everybody 
aboard is thoroughly bored. Tlien 
he’ll land again, trying to make 
it as close to base as he can. 

For such a trip, the spaceship 
has to reach a velocity of about 
4.5 miles (7 kilometers) per, sec- 
ond. If we want to do that 
with present-day fuels, the ship 
would have to have an overall 
mass-ratio of 33:1, which means 
that its takeoff mass would have 
to be 33 times as high as its re- 



maining mass, the mass of the 
ship proper, and its payload. 

Such a mass-ratio can only be 
built as a three-stage rocket, so 
that the two lower stages can 
drop off when their fuel supply 
has been exhausted. That way, 
they pass their energy on to the 
final stage, but not their dead 
weight. 

The mass-ratio of 33:1 was 
calculated on the basis of an ex- 
haust velocity of 2 kilometers per 
second for rocket fuels. The fuels 
we have now in reality can do 
somewhat better than that and 
further fuel inprovement would, 
of course, be one of the phases of 
the effort. It is probably justified 
to expect an exhaust velocity of 3 
kilometers per second within a 
few years. In that case, the mass- 
ratio for the same trip would 
have to be 10.25 : 1 and a space- 
ship with a takeoff mass of “only” 
ten times the remaining mass 
can easily be built as a two-step 
ship. 

You can, if you wish, dream 
about an exhaust velocity of 5 
kilometers or about 3 miles per 
second, in which case your mass- 
ratio would drop to 4:1. That is 
about the mass-ratio of the Vik- 
ing rocket and the result would 
be a single ship, no longer broken 
up into steps, even though a 
booster might be desirable for 
reasons of stability during take- 
off. 



GAIAXY SCIENCE MCTJON 



Well, why not dream about 
this? Don’t we have atomic en- 
ergy which should make an ex- 
haust velocity of even 5 
kilometers per second seem slow? 
Unfortunately, we don’t, mean- 
ing that we do not yet know how 
to handle it properly for this 
purpose. We know how to make 
an atomic explosion. We know 
how to make artificial radioactiv- 
ity. We know how to boil water 
in an atomic pile with the aid of 
exploding uranium nuclei. But 
we don’t know how to utilize 
atomic energy for rocket propul- 
sion. That is still a secret of 
Nature and it is not too prob- 
able that it already is a Secret 
(with a capital “s”) of the Atom- 
ic Energy Commission. 

The heat-an-inert-liquid-with- 
an-atomlc-pile methdd is not too 
promising. The idea is this: In a 
chemical fuel, the combustion of 
the fuel provides both heat and 
combustion gases which are ex- 
pelled by the rocket as reaction 
mass. If we could use an atomic 
pile, almost anything liquid would 
serve as reaction, mass and the 
pile would provide the heat. That 
sounds lovely except that the 
heat from the pile has to be 
transferred to the reaction mass 
and that takes time. Chemical 
combustion heats much faster, 
unless you can 'run the pile at an 
enormously high temperature. 

Doctors Malina and Summer- 



held once published calculations 
showing just how hot the pile 
would have to be run. If we 
wanted an exhaust velocity of 7 
kilometers per second (which 
would bring the mass-ratio of 
our ship down to a little less 
than 3:1) the chamber tempera- 
ture, using hydrogen as reaction 
mass, would have to be 5000 de- 
grees F. and the heat required 
would be almost 21,000 BTU per 
pound! 

While a rocket engineer can 
safely promise a three-stage 
spaceship working on ordinary 
chemical fuels, the atomic engin- 
eer could not (and would not) 
promise an atomic pile of such 
a performance. 

All of which does not mean 
that there won’t be a time when 
we can build atomic powered 
spaceships. It just means that a 
new discovery in th^ field of 
atomic engineering has to come 
first. 

But the liquid-fuel rocket en- 
gineer does not need new dis- 
coveries to build a spaceship. He 
just needs some time and a lot of 
money — say, several billion dol- 
lars and probably no more than 
ten years. 

Will the funds be appropriated 
and the project be begun? I think 
so. It’s the next logical step, and 
logical steps have a way of forc- 
ing men to take them. 

But we’ll have to start right 



FOR YOUR INFORMATION 



away if we want to achieve space 
flight by 1960. 

MORE ON C-14 

■pROF. Libby’s C-14 method for 
dating the past has scored 
another triumph: we now know 
the age of Stonehenge. Stone- 
henge, situated some nine miles 
from Salisbury, England, on a 
large plain, has always excited 
the imagination of those who had 
seen it. Geoffroy of Monmouth, in 
1 130, took it to be a Roman mon- 
ument built with the aid of Mer- 
lin — strangely enough, none of 
the Roman writers mentions it— 
and John Webb (1625) thought 
that it had been a Roman temple. 
John Aubrey (1655) took it to be 
a Druid temple instead and Wil- 
liafh Stukely (1723) “knew” 
that it had been built by Egyp- 
tian druids who had left their 
homeland in 460 b.C. to visit their 
British friends. 

If you add the explanations of 
amateurs, astrologers and occult- 
ists, you get a nice list of pos- 
sible builders: They were either 
men of the Late Stone Age, 
or men of the Early Bronze 
Age, or men of the Late Bronze 
Age. Or else visiting Atlanteans, 
Lemurians or Egyptians. Or visi- 
tors from space who wanted to 
impress the natives and also leave 
a landmark behind. 

The absence of any literary 



mention prior to 1130 did make it 
a tough case, for Stonehenge was 
evidently much older and must 
have been conspicuous for as long 
as it existed. The only date which 
made any sense at all was still 
based on at least two assump- 
tions. In 1901, Sir Norman Lock- 
yer assumed that whoever had 
built Stonehenge had worshiped 
the Sun and that the monument 
was oriented in such a manner 
that the midsummer Sun would 
rise over the central sacrificial 
stone. That gave 1680 b.c. as 
the probable building date. Of 
course, one could reject the as- 
sumption that the builders were 
Sun-worshipers and thereby re- 
ject the dating, too. 

Stonehenge naturally cannot 
be dated directly by the carbon- 
14 method, since this works only 
on material of organic origin. 
Recently, however, a so-far un- 
touched sacrificial pit was 
uncovered and the charcoal it 
contained could be dated. The 
result was 1848 b.c. with a margin 
of error of 275 years either way. 
It seems that Sir Norman Lock- 
yer’s ideas were correct. 

But we still don’t know who 
built it. 

THE PLANT THAT WASN’T 

I N case you like a slightly in- 
credible story, consider the 
case of the coughing plant. When 



94 



people cough, the purpose is to 
remove something irritating from 
the throat; dust is the simplest 
case. One day, more than half a 
century ago, a few people were 
sitting together in Munich and 
one who happened to have a cold 
coughed frequently. The con- 
versation veered to the subject of 
coughing, its mechanism and its 
purpose and one suggested that it 
would be useful if the pores of 
the skin could cough. “Yes,” an- 
other chimed in, “that would 
be especially useful for plants; 
they don't like to have their pores 
choked by dust, either.” Where- 
upon one member of the group 
grew thoughtful and said: "Sup- 
posing there were a coughing 
plant, wonder what its botanical 
name would be.” “Easy,** said 
somebody else. “Cough in Latin 
is fussis. Obviously, the name 
would be Tussissia something or 
other.” 

The offshoot of the evening 
was a little article discussing the 
discovery of Tussissia australis, 
which was published by the 
Munich paper Miinchner Neueste 
Nachrichten. It was not a hoax 
because the date of the paper was 
the first of April, 1900, and any- 
body on the continent knows 
better than to believe anything 
published in an April 1st issue. 
Printed April-fooling on a large 
scale is an old continental cus- 
tom — but sometimes somebody 



neglects to look at the datclipc. 

A few weeks later, a well-re- 
puted German daily printed a 
little essay on the marvelous 
tropical plant Tussissia, related 
to the red-flowered string bean of 
northern Europe. 

Another two weeks later, said 
essay could be read in fine French 
in the Journal de la Sante in 
Paris. The Journal de la Sarxte 
reached Sydney in Australia as 
fast as the mails of the year 1900 
would carry it. Three days after 
arrival, the story could be read, 
in English, in the Sydney Mail. 

I don’t- know just where the 
coughing plant “grew” for the 
following years, but in 1919 it 
was back in Germany, appearing 
almost simultaneously in the 
Rhenish - Westphaliar\ Gazette 
and in the Kdlnische Zeitung. 
The editors erf both apparently 
believed that it had been a dis- 
covery made during the war 
years and that the news had not 
penetrated through the front lines. 

Five years after that, the 
coughing plant made one more 
appearance in an important daily 
paper published in Hamburg and 
was taken from there by several 
Scandinavian publications. 

Science fiction editors, be- 
ware! If among the “odd little 
facts of science” which come 
to your desk is something about 
a coughing plant — no matter 
under what Latin name — it is 



FOR YOUR INFORMATION 



9f 



merely aa old joke that mis- 
carried. 

1 

^ TWINKLE TWINKLE 
r NEEDLEBEAM 

H ERE’S a minor item that may 
come in handy when your 
children start asking questions 
about little stars that twinkle. 
Everybody knows that those dis- 
tant suns which we, by force of 
habit, still call “fixed stars” have 
a twinkling light. A good many 
people also know that the planets 
do not. I have often taken ad- 
vantage of that fact when it came 
to (K>inting out planets at night, 
saying something like : “See that 
bright star over that tree top? 
Now look a little to the right 
from there and you’ll sec two 
stars which arc fairly close to- 
geth^. The one that does not 
twinkle is Saturn.” 

' When somebody recently ask- 
ed. "Why doesn’t it twinkle, too?” 
1 had to draw a few diagrams in 
my mind in order to explain. The 
twinkling is caused mostly in the 
lowermost five miles of the at- 
mosphere. It is due to minor dis^ 
turbances. tiny volumes of greater 
or lesser density and temperature. 
Because they are tiny, the pres- 
ence or absence of twinkle turns 
out to be a question of beam 
width. 

Let’s say that the light beam 
which enters the eye is two milli- 



meters wide. That is the aj>ex of 
a cone of light, the base of which 
is the diameter of the star. Even 
though the base of that cone may 
have a diameter of million 
miles for a fair-sized star, it can 
easily be 58,800.000 million miles 
away. In fact, it is usually much 
more because the distance just 
mentioned is merely ten light- 
years. 

Jupiter's diameter is only 86.- 
700 miles, but when the planet 
looks particularly bright, it is no 
more than some 400 million miles 
away. The result of this relation- 
ship is that, at a height of about 
three miles, the light beam from 
Jupiter has a diameter of several 
inches. The irregularities of the 
atmosphere affect only a fraction 
of that beam at a time. 

But the light beam from a dis- * 
tant sun is a “needlebeam.” Even 
at ten miles, it is still just two 
millimeters. Hence that beam is 
affected for its full width and 
seems to twinkle, 

—WILLY LKY 

.\NY QUESTIONS? 

Why do a few glaciers, like the 
Juneau glacier, increase in size 
although climatologists seem to 
be in agreement that Earth's 
weather is getting warmer. Is it? 
Joe Gibson 
24 Kensington Avenue 
Jersey City 4, N. J. 



9g 



• AlAXY SClENCi FICTION 



I lM*ii(‘vr (hat tiu* a^reriiimt 
4»n a gradual ami itlight hut prr* 
HiHinil iiior(‘a»4* in llic* ’’''aitimul 
mratt Innprraliirr'’ for (lie 
ivlinli* |»lafu‘t ia (inaniinona. 
I'lierr ia litde doiiiit that the 
friiigea of the antarelie iee ai'e 
alowly eriimhliiig/ leel>erg.s do 
not Herm to drift aa far in tiie 
ilireelion of the equator aa re* 
ported from the past, and they 
also seem to lie »muller in si/.e. 
It ia deliiiilely ealahliaheil that 
virtually all glaeiera are slowly 
reec^ling. 

It is no( yet known just what 
IK the cause of all this, but there 
is a kind of general answer: We 
are still pulling out of the last 
Ire Age. We know from geolog- 
ical evidenee that the Karih was 
almost always eoiisideraldy 
warmer than it is now. There 
were only two romparatively 
short perioils wh<>n it was colder 
than it is now— >ihe glarialion of 
the Permian |><n’iod ami the re- 
cent one. 

Of the reeent one, we know 
that it ha«l at least three ^’in- 
lerglacial'* ]>erio<ls (the Perm- 
ian glaciation prohuhly had 
similar interruptions, hut that 
was too long ago to establish 
detail), each of which was long- 
er than llie period of glaciation. 
Since the last glaciation niisse<l 
hy just a few tiiousand years 
falling into earliest historical 
times, we are evhh'iilly still in 



llie process of pulling out of It. 

^\'helbc^ we are in another 
‘•■inlcrglarial perioil" or aciti- 
ally at the eiul of a cohl rlimale 
perio<l is something we coiiltl 
answer only if wc were certain 
of tlic iiiKlerlying reasons for 
such c<dd spells. Rut in spile 
of more than a do/.en hypolli- 
eses, pnhiislied in more thuti 
t('n d<»7.en weighty volumes, we 
simply are not yet sure wliut 
causetl the lee Age. 

That a single gla<*ier like 
Juneau quotetl by my corre- 
spon<h‘nt may grow, while the 
others dwindle, is interesting 
hut ^ot inexplicahle. Because 
more ice thaws, an<l more water 
evaporates, a speriHc glacier 
elsewliere might get more 
^'‘food** than it would otherwise. 

li you send a rocket up irtto 
a 24- hour orbit, would you need 
any lateral motion? I mean the 
rocket has the motion it had on 
the surface and travels around its 
orbit once every 24 hours, any- 
way. 

Robert McArthur 
3470 23rd Street SE 
Washington D. C. 

Instead of just saying yes or 
no, 1*11 let you figure it out 
for yourself. 

A rocket standing at a point 
at the equator is, in round fig- 
ures. 39;>0 miles from the cen- 
ter of the F^arth. it has a lateral 



FOW YOUR IMFORMATtOM 



y 



motion M’bich we*ll c«H “A*’ 
and which carries it once every 
24 hours around the center of 
the Earth* The circle it de> 
scribes has a length of 7900 
miles (diameter of the Earth) 
times pi. 

A rocket in the 24-hour orbit 
Is 22,300 miles above sea level 
or 22,300 4- 3950 = 26,250 
miles from the center of the 
Earth. The diameter of its orbit 
is, consequently, 52,500 miles. 
The length of that orbit is 
52,500 limes pi miles. This 
distance must be covered every 
24 hotirs. 

Is the surface velocity “A” 
enough for that? 

In a forthcoming issue, will you 
please discuss the force of gravity 
a li^Ie? Many science fiction 
stories seem to take it for granted 
that some way of overcoming it 
will be found. 

Harold P. Pond. 

25 Ship Street 

Brighton, England 

The answer to the second 
sentence is simple — the authors 
of these stories either indulged 
in wishful thinking or else they 
needed a device for making 
their plotting easier. 

As for the first sentence, I 
am sorry to report that there is 
no answer. Or at least not yet. 

All we know about gravity is 
that absolutely nothing can be 



done to or about it. It does 
obey the inverse square law, but 
that Is the sum total of our 
knowledge. And that doesn't 
mean anything, for the inverse 
square law (the intensity is one- 
fourth at twice the distance, 
one-ninth at three times the dis- 
tance, etc.) is merely the geo- 
metrical fact that the area of a 
. sphere is proportional to the 
square of its radius. Hence the 
inverse square law also applies 
to light and beat and other 
phenomena. 

Since there is not much “an- 
swer^* in this case, I feel like 
adding a little story which is 
quite significant in several re- 
spects. Around the year 1895, a 
French newspaper carried a 
long article with a title like 
“Krupp's Secret Revealed.” 
Friedrich Krupp in Essen, al- 
ready famous as a gun manu- 
facturer, had at about that time 
astonished professional circles 
by the size and weight of cast- 
ings and forgings produced for 
a number of purposes. The ar- 
ticle in that French paper “told 
for the first time” just how 
Krupp's engineers could cope 
with pieces w'eighing from 
. twenty tons up. 

The secret was a real secret 
—somewhere in Krupp's fac- 
tory there was a gravity-free 
assembly hall ! 

The writer of the article 



CAtAXY SCIEttCE FICTION 



tf^ouM not t«ll how that hall was 
made to he g^ravity-free, Imt he 
had spoken to an eyewitness 
who had described lo him how 
a 12-ton gun barrel was lifted 
into place on its undercarriage 
hanging from a loop of bailing 
wire; and how a casting of the 
stern of a ship, comprising two 
propeller housings and the seal- 
ing for the rudder shaft, had 
been manipulated hy a single 
workman with a rope. The con- 
clusion was, of course, that 
France had to learn Krupp's 
secret in order to compete with 
Germany. 

Naturally, this article was 
picked up hy other [>apers ami 
magazines, l>oth French and 
German. Several Germans fell 
that their positions were im- 
portant enough so that they 
should be invite<l to see the 
gravity - free assembly hall. 
When Krupp's replied that 
there was no such thing, they 
were annoye<l and did not be- 
lieve it: “Of course, I realize 
the need for military secrecy, 
hut since I am a personal ad- 
visor^ to His Grace 1 strongly 
feel, etc., etc.” 

Krupp's knew it wasn't so, 
hut, mostly in self-defense, they 



Started tracking the origin of 
the story. 

It turned out to he absurdly 
simple. 

One night, at a parly, 
Kmpp's feats in casting and 
forging enormous pieces had 
been discussed at great length 
and one of the men present, 
who happened to be an em- 
ployee of Krupp's, had been 
questioned and questioned, 
mostly about things he did not 
know himself. Finally, to end 
the interminable discussion, 
he'd revealed the “setTet” of 
the gravity-free assembly hall. 

Unfortunately, it was merely 
a tall tale, but it seems to 
have had at least one fine lit- 
erary result — H. G. Wells's Thm 
First Men in the Moon was 
probably inspired by it. In that 
story, if you remember, he used 
a gravity-neutralizing substance 
for interplanetary flight. He 
was just the first of many to 
do so. 

But truth often follows sci- 
ence fiction, so we may yet find 
a way to overcome gravity. It 
might not look like a good 
hefting proposition, but neither 
were many achievements of the 
past few decades. 



FOR YOUR INFORMATION 



Tea Tray 

in the Sky 

Vis/fin0 a society is t^vgher 
them being born into if. A 40 
credit tour is no substitute! 




T he picture changed on the 
illuminated panel that 
filled the forward end erf 
the shelf on which Michael lay. 
A haggard Irfonde woman sprawl- 
ed apathetically in a chair. 



"Rundown, nervous, hyperten- 
sive?” inquired a mellifluous 
voice. "In need of mental thera- 
py? Buy Grugis juice; it’s not 
expensive. And they swear by it 
oo Merop^.” 



MO 



• ALAXY SCIINCE FICTION 




A disembodied pair of hands 
administered a 5|X>onful of Grugis 
juice to the woman, whereupon 
her hair turned bright yellow, 
makeup bloomed on her face, her 
clothes grew briefer, and she burst 
into a fast Callistan clog. 

“I see from your hair that you 
have been a member of one of 
the Brotherhoods.” the passenger 
lying next to Michael on the shelf 
remarked inquisitively. He was a 
middle-aged man, his dust-brown 
hair thinning on top, his small 
blue eyes glittering preternatural’ 
ly from the lenses fitted over his 
eyeballs. 

Michael rubbed his fingers rue- 
fully over the blond stubble on 
his scalp and wished he had wait- 
ed until his tonsure were fully 
grown before he had ventured 
out into the world. But he had 
been so impatient to leave the 
Lodge, so impatient to exchange 
the flowing robes of the Brother- 
hood for the close-fitting breeches 
and tunic of the outer world that 
had seemed so glamorous and 
now proved so itchy. 

‘‘Yes,” he replied courteously, 
for he knew the first rule of uni- 
versal behavior, “I have been a 
Brother.” 

‘‘Now why would a good-look- 
ing young fellow like you want 
to join a Bijotherhood?” his shelf 
companion wanted to know. 
“Trouble over a female?” 

Michael shook his head, smil- 

TiA TRAY IN THE SKY 



ing. “No, I have been a member 
of the Angeleno Brotherhood 
since I was an infant. My father 
brought me when he entered.” 

The other man clucked sympa- 
thetically. “No doubt he was 
grieved over the death of your 
mother.” 

Michael closed his eyes to shut 
out the sight of a baby protruding 
its fat face at him three-dimen- 
sionally, but he could not shut 
out its lisping voice; “Does your 
child refuse its food, grow wizen- 
ed like a monkey? It will grow 
plump with oh-so-good Mealy 
Mush from Nunki.” 

“No, sir,” Michael replied. 
“Father said that was one of the 
few blessings that brightened an 
otherwise benighted life.” 

Horror contorted his fellow 
traveller’s plump features. “Be 
careful, young man!” he warned. 
“Lucky for you that you arc ♦ 
talking to someone as broad- 
minded as I, but others aren’t. 

You might be reported for vio- 
lating a tabu. An Earth tabu, 
moreover.” 

“An Earth tabu?” 

“Certainly. Motherhood is sa- 
cred here on Earth and so, of 
course, in the entire United Uni- 
verse. You should have known 
that.” 

ly ICHAEL blushed. He should 
indeed. For a year prior to 
his leaving the Lodge, he had 

101 



carefully studied the customs and 
tabus of the Universe so that he 
should be able to enter the new 
life he planned for himself, with 
confidence and ease. Under the 
system of universal kinship, all 
the customs and all the tabus 
of all the planets were the law on 
all the other planets. For the 
Wise . Ones had decided many 
years before that wars arose from 
not understanding one’s fellows, 
not sympathizing with them. If 
every nation, every, planet, every 
solar system had the same laws, 
customs, and habits, they reason- 
ed, there would be no differences, 
and hence no wars. 

Future events had proved them 
to be correct. For five hundred 
years there had been no war in 
the United Universe, and there 
was peace and plenty for all. 
Only^one crime was recognized 
throughout the solar systems — in- 
juring a fellow-creature by word 
or deed (and the telepaths of 
Aldebaran were still trying to add 
thought to the statute). 

Why, then, Michael had ques- 
tioned the Father Superior, was 
there any reason for the Lodge’s 
existence, any reason for a group 
of humans to retire from the 
world and live in the simple ways 
of their primitive forefathers? 
When there had been war, in- 
justice. tyranny, there had, per- 
haps, been an understandable 
emotional reason for fleeing the 



world. But now why refuse to 
face a desirable reality? Why turn 
one’s face upon the present and 
deliberately go back to the life 
of the past — the high collars, 
vests and trousers, the inefficient 
coal furnaces, the rude gasoline 
tractors of medieval days? 

The Father Superior had 
smiled. “You are not yet a fully 
fledged Brother, Michael. You 
cannot enter your novitiate until 
you’ve achieved your majority, 
and you won’t be thirty for an- 
other five years. Why don’t you 
spend some time outside and sec 
how you like it?” 

Michaehhad agreed, but before 
leaving he had spent months 
studying the ways of the United 
Universe. He had skimmed over 
Earth, because he had been so 
sure he’d know its ways instinc- 
tively. Remembering his prepara- 
tions, he was astonished by his 
smug self-confidence. 

k large scarlet pencil jumped 
merrily across the advideo 
screen. The face on the eraser 
opened its mouth and sang: “Our 
pencils are finest from point up 
to rubber, for the lead is from 
Yed, while the wood comes from 
Dschubba.” 

“Is there any way of «nrning 
that thing off?” Michael wanted 
to know. 

The other man smiled. “If 
there were, my boy, do you think 



102 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



anybody would watch it? Fur- 
thermore, turning it off would 
violate the spirit of free enter- 
prise. We wouldn’t want that, 
would we?” 

“Oh, no!” Michael agreed hast- 
ily. “Certainly not.” 

“And it might hurt the adver- 
tiser’s feelings, cause him ego in- 
jury.” 

“How could I ever have had 
such a ridiculous idea?” Michael 
murmured, abashed. 

“Allow me to introduce my- 
self,” said his companion. “My 
name is Pierce B. Carpenter. 
Aphrodisiacs are my line. Here’s 
my card.” He handed Michael a 
transparent tab with the photo- 
graph of Mr. Carpenter sus- 
pended inside, together with his 
registration number, his name, 
his address, and the Universal 
seal of approval. Clearly he was 
a character of the utmost re- 
spectability. 

“My name’s Michael Frey.” 
the young man responded, smil- 
ing awkwardly. “I’m afraid I 
don’t have any cards.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t have had 
any use for them where you were. 
Now, look here, son,” Carpenter 
went on in a lowered voice, “I 
know you’ve just come from the 
Lodge and the mistakes you’ll 
make will be through ignorance 
rather than deliberate malice. But 
the police wouldn’t understand. 
You know what the sacred writ- 

TEA TRAY IN THE SKY. 



ings say: ’Ignorance of The Law 
is no excuse.’ I’d be glad to give 
you any little tips I can. For in- 
stance, your hands . . 

Michael spread his hands out 
in front of him. They were per- 
fectly good hands, he thought. 
“Is there something wrong with 
them?” 

Carpenter blushed and looked 
away. “Didn’t you know that on 
Electra it is forbidden for any- 
one to appear in public with his 
hands bare?” 

“Of course I know that,” Mi- 
chael said impatiently. “But 
what’s that got to do with me?” 

The salesman was wide-eyed. 
“But if it is forbidden on Electra, 
it becomes automatically prohib- 
ited here.” 

“But Electrans have eight fin- 
gers on each hand,” Michael pro- 
tested, “with two fingernails on 
each — all covered with green 
scales.” 

Carpenter drew himself up as 
far as it was possible to do so 
while lying down. “Do eight fin- 
gers make one a lesser Universal?” 

“Of course not, but — ” 

“Is he inferior to you then be- 
cause he has sixteen fingernails?” 

“Certainly not, but — ” 

“Would you like to be called 
guilty of — ” Carpenter paused be- 
fore the dreaded word — **intoIer- 
ance?** 

“No, no, no!" Michael almost 
shrieked. It would be horrible for 

' 1M 



him to be arrested before he even 
had time to view Portyork. “I 
have lots of gloves in my pack.” 
be babbled. “Lots and lots. 1*11 
put some on right away,’* 

W ITH nervous haste, he 
pressed the lever which 
dropped his pack down from the 
storage compartment. It landed 
on his stomach. The device had 
been invented by one of the 
Dschubbans who are, as everyone 
knows, hoop-shaped. 

Michael pushed the button 
marked Gloves A. and a pair of 
yellow gauntlets slid out. 

Carp>enter pressed his hands to 
his eyes. “Yellow is the color of 
death on Saturn, and you know 
how morbid the Saturnians arc 
about passing away! No one ever 
wear% yellow!” 

“Sorry,*' Michael said humbly. 
The button marked Cloves B 
yielded a pair of rose-colored 
gloves which harmonized ill with 
his scarlet tunic and turquoise 
breeches, but he was past caring 
for esthetic effects, 

“The quality's high,” sang a 
quartet of beautiful female hu- 
manoids, “but the price is meager. 
You kiww when you buy Plum- 
my Fruitcake from Vega.” 

The salesman patted Michael’s 
shoulder. “You staying a while in 
Portyork?” Michael nodded. 
“Then you’d better stick close to 
me for a while until you learn 



our ways. You can’t run around 
loose by yourself until you’ve 
acquired civilized behavior pat- 
terns, or you’ll get into trouble.” 

"Thank you, sir.” Michael said 
gratefully. “It’s very kind of 
you.” 

He twisted himself around — it 
was boiling hot inside the jet bus 
and his damp clothes were cling- 
ing uncomfortably — and struck 
his head against the bottom of the 
shelf above. “Awfully inconven- 
ient arrangement here," he com- 
mented. “Wonder why they don’t 
have scats.” 

"Because this arrangement,” 
Carpenter said stiffly, “is the one 
that has proved suitable for the 
greatest number of intelligent life- 
forms.” 

“Oh. I see,” Michael mur- 
mured. "I didn’t get a look at the 
other passengers. Are there many 
extraterrestrials on the bus?” 

"Dozens of them. Haven’t you 
heard the Sirians singing?” 

A low moaning noise had been 
pervading the bus, but Michael 
had thought it arose from defec- 
tive jets. 

“Oh, yes!” he agreed. “And 
very beautiful it is, too! But so 
sad.” 

"Sirians are always sad,” the 
salesman told him. "Listen.” 

liMlCHAEL strained bis ears 
past the racket of the advldeo. 
Sure enough, he could make out 



104 



OAIAXY 5CIENCI FICTION 



words : “Our wings were unfurled 
in a far distant world, our bodies 
are pain-racked, delirious. And 
never, it seems, will we see. save 
in dreams, the bright purple 
swamps of our Sirius . . 

Carpenter brushed away a tear. 
“Poignant, isn’t it?” 

"Very, very touching,” Michael 
agreed. “Are they sick or some- 
thing?” 

“Oh, no; they wouldn't have 
been permitted on the bus if 
they were. They’re just homesick. 
Sirians love being homesick. 
That's why they leave Sirius in 
such great numbers.” 

“Fasten your suction disks, 
please,” the stewardess, a pretty 
two-headed Denebian, ordered as 
she walked up and down the 
gangway. “We’re coming into 
Portyork. I have an announce- 
ment to make to all passengers 
on behalf of the United Universe. 
Zosma was admitted into the 
Union early this morning.” 

All the pa.ssengers cheered. 
“Since it is considered im- 
modest on Zosma,” she continued, 
“ever to appear with the heads 
bare, henceforward it will be tabu 
to be seen in public without some 
sort of head-covering.” 

Wild scrabbling sounds indi- 
cated that all the passengers were 
searching their packs for head- 
gear. Michajl unearthed a violet 
cap. 

The salesman unfolded what 



looked like a medieval opera hat 
in piercingly bright green. 

“Always got to keep on your 
toes,” he whispered to the young- 
er man. “The Universe is ex- 
panding every minute.” 

The bus settled softly on the 
landing held and the passengers 
flew, floated, crawled, undulated, 
or walked out. Michael looked 
around him curiously. The Lodge 
had contained no extraterrestrials, 
for such of those as sought seclu- 
sion had Brotherhoods on their 
own planets. 

Of course, even in Angeles he 
had seen other-worlders — human- 
oids from Vega, scaly Electrans, 
the wispy ubiquitous Sirians — 
but nothing to compare with the 
crowds that surged here. Scarlet 
Mcropians rubbed tentacles with 
bulging-eyed Talithans; lumpish 
gray Jovians plodded alongside 
graceful, spidery Nunkians. And 
there were countless others whom 
he had seen pictured in books, but 
never before in reality. 

The gaily colored costumes and 
bodies of these beings rendered 
kaleidoscopic a held already bril- 
liant with red-and-green lights 
and banners. The effect was en- 
hanced by Mr. Carpenter, whose 
emerald-green cloak was drawn 
back to reveal a chartreuse tunic 
and olive-green breeches which 
had apparently been designed for 
a taller and somewhat less pudgy 
man. 



TEA TRAY IN THE SKY 



>05 




^ARPENTER rubbed modest- 
^ ly gloved hands together. “I 
have no immediate business, so 
supposing I start showing you 
the sights. What would you like 
to see first, Mr. Frey? Or would 
you prefer a nice, restful movid?” 
“Frankly,” Michael admitted, 
"the first thing I’d like to do is 
get myself something to eat. I 
didn’t haye any breakfast and 
I’m famished.” Two small crea- 
tures standing close to him gig- 
gled nervously ^nd scuttled off 
on six legs apiece: 

“Shh, not so loud! There are 
females preseht.” Carpenter drew 



the youth to a secluded corner. 
“Don’t you know that on Thee- 
mim it’s frightfully vulgar to as 
much as speak of eating in pub- 
lic?” 

“But why?” Michael demanded 
in too loud a voice. “What’s 
wrong with eating in public here 
on Earth?” 

Carpenter clapped a hand over 
the young man’s mouth. “Hush,” 
he cautioned. “After all, on 
Earth there are things we don’t 
do or even mention in public, 
aren’t there?” 

“Well, yes. But those arc dif- 
ferent.” 

“Not at all. Those rules might 
seem just as ridiculous to a Thee- 
mimian. But the Theemimians 
have accepted our customs just 
as we have Accepted the Thee- 
mimians’. How would you like 
it if a Theemimian violated (me 
of our tabus in public? You must 
consider the feelings of the Thee- 
mimians as equal to your own. 
Observe the golden rule : ‘Do unto 
extraterrestrials as you would be 
done by.’ ” 

“But I’m still hungry,” Michael 
persisted, modulating his voice, 
however, to a decent whisper. 
“Do the proprieties demand that 
I starve to death, or can I get 
something to eat somewhere?” 

“Naturally,” the salesman 
whimpered back. “Po^york pro- 
vides for fill bodily needs. Nu- 
merous f(>eding stations are 



106 



GAIAI^T SCIENCE FICTION 





conveniently located throughout 
the portf and there must be some 
on the field.” 

After ga2ing furtively over his 
shoulder to see that no females 
were watching, Carpenter ap- 
proached a large map of the land- 
ing field and pressed a button. A 
tiny red light winked demurely 
for an instant. 

“That’s the nearest one,” Car- 
penter explained. 

¥NSIDE a small, white, func- 
tional-looking building unob- 
trusively marked “Feeding 
Station,” Carpenter showed Mi- 
chael where to insert a two-credit 
piece in a slot. A door slid back 
and admitted Michael into a tiny, 
austere room, furnished only with 
a table, a chair, a food compart- 
ment, and an advideo. The food 
consisted of tabloid synthetics 
and was tasteless. Michael knew 
that only primitive creatures 
waste time and energy in growing 
and preparing natural foods. It 
was all a matter of getting used 
to this stuff, he thought glumly, 
as he tried to chew food that was 
meant to be gulped. 

A ferret-eyed Yeddan appeared 
on the advideo. “Do you suffer 
from gastric disorders? Does your 
viscera get in your hair? A hor- 
rid condition, but swift abolition 
is yours with Al-Brom from Al- 
tair.” 

Michael finished his meal in 

TEA TRAY IN THE SKY 



fifteen minutes and left the com- 
partment to find Carpenter 
awaiting him in the lobby, im- 
patiently glancing at the lumi- 
nous time dial embedded in his 
wrist. 

“Let’s go to the Old Town,” he 
suggested to Michael. “It will be 
of great interest to a student and 
a newcomer like yourself.” 

A few yards away from the 
feeding station, the travel agents 
were lined up in rows, each out- 
side his spaceship, each shouting 
the advantages of the tour he 
offered: 

“Better than a mustard plaster 
is a weekend spent on Castor.” 
“If you want to show you like 
her, take her for a week to Spica.” 
“Movid stars go to Mars.’* 
Carpenter smiled politely at 
them. “No space trips for us to- 
day, gentlemen. We’re staying on 
Terra.” He guided the bewildered 
young man through the crowds 
and to the gates of the field. Out- 
side, a number of surface vehicles 
were lined up, with the drivers 
loudly competing for business. 

“Come, take a ride in my rock- 
et car, suited to both gent and 
lady, lined with luxury hukka fur 
brought from afar, and perfumed 
with rare scents from Algedi.” 
“Whichever movid film you 
choose to view will be yours in 
my fine cab from Mizar. Just 
press a button — it won’t cost you 
nuttin’ — see a passionate drama 

• 107 



of long -vanished Mu or the 
bloodiiounds pursuing Eliza.*' 

“All honor be laid at die feet 
of free trade, but, whatever your 
race or your birth, each passenger 
curls up with two dancing girls 
who rides in the taxi from Earth.” 
“Couldn’t we — couldn’t we 
walk? At least part of the way?*' 
Michael faltered. 

Carpenter stared. “Walk! Don’t 
you know it's forbidden to walk 
more than two hundred yards in 
any one direction? Fomalhau- 
tians never walk.” 

“But they have no feet.” 

“T^hat has nothing whatsoever 
to do with it.” 

C ARPENTER gently urged the 
young man into the Algedtan 
cab , , , which reeked. Michael 
held ♦his nose, but his mentor 
shook his head. “No, no! Tpiu 
Number Five is the most es- 
teemed aroma on Algedi. It would 
break the driver's heart if he 
thought you didn’t like it. You 
wouldn’t want to be had up for 
ego injury, would you?” 

“Of course not,” Michael whis- 
pered weakly. 

“Brunettes are darker and 
blondes are fairer,” the advideo 
informed him, “when they wash 
out their hair with shampoos 
made on Chara.” 

After a time, Michael got more 
or less used to Tpiu Number. 
Five and was able to take some 

10 # 




interest in the passing landscape. 
Portyork, the biggest spaceport 
in the United Universe, was, of 
course, the most cosmopolitan 
city-~K:osmopolitan in its archi* 
tecture as well as its inhabitants. 
Silver domes of Earth were 
crowded next to the tall helical 
edifices of the Venusians. 

“You’ll notice that the current 
medieval revival has even reach- 
ed architecture,” Carpenter point- 
ed out. “See those period houses 
in the Frank Lloyd Wright and 
Inigo Jones manner?” 

“Very quaint,” Michael com- 
mented. 

Great floating red and green 
balls lit the streets, even though 
it was still daylight, and long 
scarlet - and - emerald streamers 

OAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



whipped out from the most un- 
likely places. As Michael opened 
his mouth to inquire about this, 
“We now interrupt the commer- 
cials,” the advideo said, “to bring 
you a brand new version of one of 
the medieval ballads that are be- 
coming so popular . . 

“I shall scream,” stated Car- 
penter, “if they play Beautiful 
Blue Deneb just once more . . . 
No. thank the Wise Ones, I’ve 
never heard this before.” 

“Thuban, Thuban, I’ve been 
thinking,” sang a buxom Betel- 
geusian, “what a Cosmos this 
could be, if land masses were 
transported to replace the waste- 
ful sea.” 

“I guess the first thing for me 
to do,” Michael began in a busi- 
nesslike manner, “is to get myself 
a room at a hotel . . . What have 
I said now?” 

“The word hotel," Carpenter 
explained through pursed lips, “is 
not used in polite society any 
more. It has come to have un- 
pleasant connotations. It means — 
a place of dancing girls. I hardly 
think . . .” 

“Certainly not,” Michael 
agreed austerely. “I merely want 
a lodging.” 

“That word is also — well, you 
see,” Carpenter told him, “on 
Zaniah it is unthinkable to go 
anywhere without one’s family.” 

“They’re a sort of ant, aren’t 
they? The Zaniahans, I mean.” 



“More like bees. So those crea- 
tures who travel — ” Carpenter 
lowered his voice modestly 
“ — atone hire a family for the 
duration of their stay. There are 
a number of families available, 
but the better types come rather 
high. There has been talk of re- 
viving the old-fashioned i^ice 
controls, but the Wise Ones say 
this would limit free enterprise 
as much as — if you’ll excuse my 
use of the expression — ^tariffs 
would.” 

taxi let them off at a 
square meadow which was 
filled with transparent plastic 
domes housing clocks of all vari- 
eties, most of the antique type 
based on the old twenty-four hour 
day instead of the standard thirty 
hours. There were few extrater- 
restrial clocks because most non- 
humans had time sense, Michael 
knew, and needed no mechanical 
devices. 

“This,” said Carpenter, “is 
Times Square. Once it wasn’t 
really square, but it is contrary to 
Nekkarian custom to do, say, im- 
ply, w permit the existence of 
anything that isn’t true, so when 
Nekkar entered the Union, we 
had to square off the place. And, 
of course, install the clocks. 
Finest clock museum in the 
Union, I understand.” 

“The pictures in my history 
books — ” Michael began. 



TEA TIAY IN THE SKY 



1»9 



“Did I hear you correctly, sir?’* 
The capes of a bright blue cloak 
trembled with the indignation of 
a scarlet, many-tentacled being. 
•‘Did you use the word history?” 
He pronounced it in terms of 
loathing. “I have been grossly in- 
sulted and I shall be forced to 
report you to the police, sir.” 
“Please don’t!” Carpenter 
begged. “This youth has just 
come from one of the Brother- 
hoods and is not yet accustomed 
to the ways of our universe. I 
know that, because of the great 
sophistication for which your race 
is noted, you will overlook this 
little gaucheric on his part.” 
“Well,” the red one conceded, 
“let it not be said that Meropians 
arc not tolerant. But, be careful, 
young man,” he warned Michael. 
“There are other beings less so- 
phisticated than we. Guard your 
tongue, or you might find your- 
self in trouble.” 

He indicated the stalwart con- 
stable who. splendid in gold hel- 
met and gold-spangled pink 
tights, surveyed the terrain 
haughtily from his floating plat- 
form in the air. 

“I should have told you,” Car- 
penter reproached himself as the 
Meropian swirled off. “Never 
mention the word ‘history’ in 
front of a Meropian. They rose 
from barbarism in one generation, 
and so they haven’t any history 
at all. Naturally, they're sensi- 



live in the extreme about it.” 
“Naturally,” Michael said. 
“Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, is there 
some special reason for every- 
thing being decorated in red and 
green? I noticed it along the way 
and it’s all over here, too.” 

“Why, Christmas is coming, 
my boy.” Carpenter answered, 
surprised. “It’s July already— 
about time they got started fix- 
ing things up. Some places are so 
slack, they haven’t even got their 
Mother’s Week shrines cleared 
away.” 

A BEVY of tiny golden-haired, 
winged creatures circled slow- 
ly over Times Square. 

“Izarians,” Carpenter explain- 
ed “They’re much in demand for 
Christmas displays.” 

The small mouths opened and 
clear soprano voices filled the 
air: “It came upon the midnight 
clear, that glorious song of old, 
from angels bending near the 
Earth to tune their harps of gold. 
Peace on Earth, good will to men, 
from Heaven’s All-Celestial. 
Peace to the Universe as well and 
every extraterrestrial . . . Beat the 
drum and clash the cymbals; buy 
your Christmas gifts at Nim- 
ble’s.” 

“This beautiful walk you see 
before you,” Carpenter said, wav- 
ing an expository arm, “shaded 
by boogil trees from Dschubba. is 
called Broadway. To your left 
. ^ 

GALAXY SCIINCE FICTION 




you will be delighted to see — ** 
“Listen, could we^ — ” Michael 
began. 

“ — Forty-second Street, which 
is now actually the forty-sec- 
ond — " 

“By the way — ’’ 

“It is extremely rude and hence 
illegal,** Carpenter glared, “to in- 
terrupt anyone who is speaking.’* 
“But I would like,” Michael 
whispered very earnestly, “to get 
washed. If 1 might.” 

The other man frowned. “Let 
me see. I believe one of the old 
landmarks was converted into a 
lavatctfy. Only thing of suitable 
dinaensions. Anyhow, it was ab- 
solutely useless for any other 
purpose. We have to take a taxi 
there; it’s more than two hundred 
yards. Custom, you know.” 

“A taxi? Isn’t there one closer?” 
“Ah, impatient youth! ‘There 
aren’t too many altogether. The 
installations arc extremely expen- 
sive.” 

They hailed the nearest taxi, 
which happened to be one of the 



variety equipped with dancing 
girls. Fortunately the ride was 
brief. 

Michael gazed at the Empire 
State Building with interest. It 
was in a remarkable state ot 
preservation and looked just like 
the pictures in his history — in his 
books, except that none of them 
showed the huge golden sign 
“Public -Washport” riding on its 
spire. 

Attendants directed traffic from 
a large circular desk in the lobby. 
“Mercurians, seventy-eighth floor. 
A group Vegans, fourteenth floor 
right. B group, fourteenth floor 
left. C group, fifteenth floor right. 
D group, fifteenth floor left. Si- 
rians, forty-ninth floor. Female 
humans fiftieth floor right, males, 
fiftieth floor left. Uranians, base- 
ment ...” 

Carpenter and Michael shared 
an elevator with a group of sad- 
eyed, translucent Sirians, who 
were singing as usual and accom- 
panying themselves on wemps, a 
cfoss between a harp and a fliitC- 



TEA TRAY IN THE SKY 



“Foreign planets are strange and 
we’re subject to mange. Foreign 
atmospheres prove deleterious. 
Only with our mind’s eye can we 
sail through the sky to the bright 
purple swamps of our Sirius.’* 

The cost of the compartment 
was half that of the feeding sta- 
tion: one credit in the slot un- 
locked the door. There was an 
advideo here, too: 

“Friend, do you clean yourself 
each day? Now. let’s not be eva- 
sive, for each one has his favored 
way. Some use an abrasive and 
some use oil. Some shed their 
skins, in a brand-new hide emerg- 
ing. Sonne rub with grease put up 
in tins. For others there’s deterg- 
ing. Some lick themselves to take 
off grime. Some beat it off with 
rope. Some cook it away in boil- 
lime. Old-fashioned ones use 
soap. More ways there are than I 
recall, and each of these will 
differ, but the only one that 
works for all is Omniclene from 
Klffa.’* 

“ A ND now,” smiled Carpenter 
^^as the two humans left the 
building, “we must see you reg- 
istered for a nice family. Nothing 
too ostentatious, but, on the other 
hand, you mustn’t count credits 
and ally yourself beneath your 
station.” 

Michael gazed pensively at two 
slender, snakelike Difdans writh- 
ing “Only 99 Shopping Days Till 

ait 



Christmas” across an aquamarine 
sky. 

“They won’t be permanent?’* 
he asked. “The family, I mean?’* 
“Certainly not. You merely 
hire them for whatever length of 
time you choose. But why are 
you so anxious?” 

The young man blushed. “Well, 
I’m thinking of having a family 
of my own some day. Pretty 
soon, as a matter of fact.” 

Carpenter beamed. “That’s 
nice; you’re being adopted! I do 
hope it’s an Earth family that’s 
chosen you — it’s so awkward be- 
ing adopted by extraterrestrials.” 
“Oh, no! I’m planning to have 
my own. That is, I’ve got a — a 
girl, you see, and I thought after 
I had secured employment of 
some kind in Portyork, I’d send 
for her and we’d get married 
and . . .” 

“Married!" Carpenter was now 
completely shocked. “You musfn’t 
use that word! Don’t you know 
marriage was outlawed years ago? 
Exclusive possession of a mem- 
ber of the opposite sex is slavery 
Oft Talitha. Furthermore, suppos- 
ing somebody else saw your — er 
—friend and wanted her also; you 
wouldn’t wish him to endure the 
frustration of not having her, 
would you?” 

Michael squared his jaw. “You 
bet I would.” 

Carpenter drew himself away 
slightly, as if to ivoid contamina- 



OAlAXr SCIENCS FICTION 



tion. “This is un-Unlversal. 
Young man. if I didn't have a 
kind heart, I would report you.” 
Michael was too preoccupied to 
be disturbed by this threat. “You 
mean if I bring my girl here. I’d 
have to share her?” 

“Certainly. And she’d have to 
share you. If somebody wanted 
you. that is.” 

“Then I’m not staying here,” 
Michael declared firmly, ashamed 
to admit even to himself how 
much relief his decision was 
bringing him. “I don’t think I 
like it, anyhow. I’m going back 
to the Brotherhood.” 

There was a shortT'cold silence. 
“You know, son,” Carpenter 
finally said. “I think you might 
be right. I don’t want to hurt 
your feelings — you promise I 
won’t hurt your feelings?” he 
asked anxiously, afraid. Michael 
realized, that he might Call a 
policeman for ego injury. 

“You won’t hurt my feelings, 
Mr. Carpenter.” 

“Well, I believe that there are 
certain individuals who just can- 
not adapt themselves to civilized 
behavior patterns. It’s much bet- 
ter for them to belong to a 
Brotherhood such as yours than 
to be placed in one of the govern- 
ment incarceratoriums, comfort- 
able and commodious though 
they are.” 

“Much better,” Michael agreed. 
“By the way,” Carpenter went 



on. “I realize this is just vulgar 
curiosity on my part and you 
have a right to refuse an answer 
witliout fear of hurting my feel- 
ings, but how do you happen to 
have a — er — girl when you belong 
to a Brotherhood?” 

Michael laughed. “Oh, ‘Broth- 
erhood’ is merely a generic term. 
Both sexes are represented in our 
society.” 

“On Talitha — ” Carpenter be- 
gan. 

“I know,” Michael interrupted 
him, like the crude primitive he 
was and always would be. “But 
our females don’t mind being 
generic.” 

A GROUP of Sirians was trav- 
eling on the shelf above him 
on the slow, very slow jet bus 
that was flying Michael back to 
Angeles, back to the Lodge, back 
to the Brotherhood, back to her. 
Their melancholy howling was 
getting on his nerves, but in a 
little, while, he told himself, it 
would be all over. He would be 
back home, safe with his own 
kind. 

“When our minds have grown 
tired, when our lives have expired, 
when our sorrows no longer can 
weary us, let our ashes return, 
neatly packed In an urn, to the 
bright purple swamps of our 
Sirius.” 

The advideo crackled: “The 
gown her fairy godmother once 



TEA TRAY IN THE SKY 



'113 



gave to Cinderella was created by 
the haute couture of fashion-wise 
Capella.” 

The ancient taxi was there, the 
one that Michael had taken from 
the Lodge, early that morning, to 
the little Angeleno landing field, 
as if it had been waiting for his 
return. 

“I sec you’re back, son,” the 
driver said without surprise. He 
set the noisy old rockets blasting. 
*‘I been to Forty ork once. It’s not 
a bad place to live in, but I hate 
to visit it.” 

‘Tm back!” Michael sank into 
the mothcaten sable cushions and 
gazed with pleasure at the fa- 
miliar landmarks half seen in the 
darkness. 'Tm back! And a loud 
sneer to civilization!” 

“Better be careful, son,” the 
(driver warned. “I know this is a 
% rural area^ but civilization is 
spreading. There are secret police 
all over. How do you know I 
ain’t a government spy? I could 
pull you in for insulting civiliza- 
tion.” 

The elderly black and white 
advideo flickered, broke into 
purring sound: “Do you find life 
continues to daze you? Do you 
find for a quick death you hank- 
er? Why not try the new style 
euthanasia, performed by skilled 
workmen from Ancha?” 

Not any more, Michael thought 
contentedly. He was going home. 

— EVEhVN E. SMITH 



HAVE YOU 
HEARD 

WILLY LEY’S 

RADIO PROGRAM 

“LOOKING INTO 
SPACE" 

on your A.B.C. Station 
Every Saturday After- 
noon at 4:15 E.D.T.? 

• • • 

This informol discussion of 
SCIENCE FICTION ond FACTS 
will cover everything your 
letters to GALAXY'S "For Your 
Information Dep't" show us 
you ore interested in.— 

Space Trovel, Guided 
Missiles, Jets, Flying 
Soucers, Rockets, As- 
tronomy, Physics, Nat- 
urol History, Stors, 
Asteroids, etc. 

• • • 

Send your questions to Willy 
Ley, Science Editor, Goloxy, 
421 Hudson St., New York 14, 
N. Y. 

Would you like this program 
to continue? Drop us a cord or 
letter and let us know. 



114 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



(^Continued from paf^e 3) 
wc react if we were unexjjectedly 
pushed into them? 

• You suddenly have a chance 
to sign on an interplanetary 
or interstellar spaceship. True 
enough, volunteers can be found 
for any deadly mission; their fear 
is so great, generally, that they 
must constantly challenge it to 
master it. But I'm assuming 
you’re healthily cautious, like 
most of us. * 

Would you sign on? The ship 
is huge on Earth, but how small 
would it seem in space? How 
well do you think you’d take the 
monotony, the weightlessness, the 
awful infinity? What about the 
prospe>.’ts of landing safely, liv- 
ing and exploring for a while on 
a totally alien world — and the re- 
turn trip? 

• A strange ship lands in your 
yard and weird creatures emerge. 
How would you feel and what 
would you do? 

• Bombs destroy the entire p>op- 
ulation, leaving you apparently 
the only person alive. What 
would your thoughts be? Would 
you be able to live with your 
grief and horror? Would you risk 
your life searching for another 
survivor, preferably, in the last- 
man tradition, of the opposite sex? 
And suppose you did find ope — 
somebody unusually revolting; 
would you overcome your repug- 
nance in order to keep the race 



going? And what if you found no 
one at all. but. instead, absolute 
proof that everyone else had 
been wiped out? 

• The inventor of a time machine 
invites you to trav^ anywhere in 
time you choose to go. For the 
sake of exciting ideas, we blandly 
ignore the enormous difficulty of 
pinpointing a target as tiny a.s 
Earth, which moves around the 
Sun. with the Solar System, the 
Galaxy and the Universe, at a 
speed and in a direction we have 
not been able to determine. You 
might go into the past or future 
and find yourself stranded in 
space! 

But suppose you could land 
wherever and whenever you want. 
Would you choose to contend 
with the disease, superstitious 
suspicion and savagery of the 
past, the language barriers and 
vast disparity of ideas? Could 
you feel comfortable in a slave 
society? Or keep safely quiet 
about beliefs which would be sui- 
cidal to correct? 

The future? Think how an an- 
cient Greek or Roman would fare 
in our civilization. The future 
may be just as far removed in 
change of all sorts. It’s not even 
necessary to bring an ancient 
Greek to the 20th century to get 
him in trouble: he would have 
found his” enquiring mind and 
free expression a menace in the 
Middle Ages. 



OM HEROES 



ns 



• Immortality is offered you. 
Would you accept it, knowing 
you would outlive all your 
friends and relatives? Could you 
cope with the boredom that 
seems so inevitable? 

T hese aren’t fair tests of hero- 
isifti, I realize. They deal only 
with anticipation, because the 
reality is unlikely to be ejcperi- 
enccd and, since that’s so. we 
can’t estimate reaction. Th^t, as 
you know, can be anything from 
the shakes to outright psycho- 
logical collapse. 

One odd thing about the real- 
istic treatment of heroism is that 
most readers object to it. Exam- 
ined superficially, this is a para- 
dox — they don’t believe in it. 
yet they dislike a hero who does 
not act like one. 

^ut consider it this way: 

• The majority of us want to 
identify with heroes who do not 
suffer from our own caution or 
apprehension. I don’t see why 
we shouldn’t want to. Wh*cre’s 
the percentage in identifying with 
someone just like us? We know 
our own attitudes pretty well; 
we’d like to see how someone else 
feels and acts in tight spots. 

• Training and conditioning 
have a good deal to do with per- 
formance. We might not be 
happy in a jet plane or sub- 
marine. but at least we know 
what they are and something of 



what to expect in them. A primi- 
tive, though, would be overcome 
with terror on a jet or submarine 
ride. 

In other words, living in a 
civilization in which spaceships 
and time machines are relatively 
commonplace is not the same as 
abruptly encountering them. A 
hero of an interplanetary war, in 
that case, is no less probable than 
a jet ace, an elevator operator in 
a skyscraper, or a pedestrian 
crossing a busy street. Any of 
these undertakings would be dan- 
gerous to somebody who wasn’t 
quite thoroughly trained or con- 
ditioned to it. 

• For all the premonitory worry 
we might feel. I think most of 
us know we’d do all right in simi- 
lar situations, given the same 
training and conditioning as our 
fictional heroes. This is not an 
unrealistic assumption. It is 
borne out by the courage shown 
by almost whole populations un- 
der bombing and enemy invasion, 
resourcefulness during flood, 
quake, famine. 

It’s the imaginary danger that 
creates apprehension. A real one 
can usually be counted on to be 
confronted bravely — heroically, 
if you wish. 

But what would go through 
your mind and what would you 
do if you were in one of the situ- 
ations described? 

— H. I.. <,oi.n 






y 



iu 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




The Mousetrap 

By GORDON R. DICKSON 



A luxuriously furnished world 
all To fiimse/ff Very pleasant 
but how and why was he there? 

Mlustrofed by KARL ROGERS 



T here was nothing to do. 
There was no place to go. 
He swam up to con- 
sciousness on the sleepy languor 
of that thought. Nothing to do, 
no place to go, tomorrow is for- 
ever. Could sleep, but body wants 



to wake-up. His body was a cork 
floating up from deep water, up, 
up to the surface. 

He opened his eyes. Sunlight 
and blue sky; sky so blue that if 
you looked at it long enough you 
could begin to imagine yourself 



THE MOUSETRAP 



117 



falling into it. No clouds; just 
blue, blue sky. 

He felt as if he had slept the 
clock of eternity around and back 
again until the hands of time were 
in the same position they had 
held when he went to sleep. When 
had that been? It was a long time 
ago, top far back to remember. 
He stopped worrying about it. 

He lay supine, his arms flung 
wide, his legs asprawl. He became 
conscious of short blades of grass 
tickling the backs of his hands. 
There was a tiny breeze from 
somewhere that now and again 
brushed his face with its cool 
wing. And an edge of white cloud 
was creeping into the patch of 
blue that gradually filled his field 
of vision. 

Slowly, physical awareness 
crept back to him. He felt 
sm8bth, loose clothing lying 
lightly against his skin, the ex- 
pansion and contraction of his 
chest, the hard ground pressure 
against the long length of his 
back. And suddenly he was com- 
plete. The thousand disconnected 
sensations flowed together and 
became one. He was aware of 
himself as a single united entity, 
alive and alone, lying stretched 
out, exposed and vulnerable in 
an unknown place. 

Brain' pulsed, nerves tensed, 
muscles leaped. 

He sat up. 

“Where am I?” 



T¥E sat on a carpet of green 
■■ * turf that dipped gradually 
away ahead and on either side of 
him to a ridiculously close hori- 
zon. He twisted his head and 
looked over his shoulder. Behind 
him was a gravel walk leading to 
a small building that looked very 
airy and light. The front, be- 
neath a thick ivory roof that 
soared flat out, apparently un- 
supported for several yards be- 
yond the front itself, was one 
large window. He could see, like 
looking into the cool dimness of 
a cave, big, comfortable chairs* 
low tables, and what might pos- 
sibly be a viseo. 

Hesitantly, he rose to his feet 
and approached the building. 

At the entrance he paused. 
There was no door, only a vari- 
able force-curtain to keep the 
breezes out; and he pushed his 
hand through it carefully, as if to 
test the atmosphere inside. But 
there was only the clastic stretch 
and sudden yield that was like 
pushing your fist through the wall 
of a huge soap bubble, and then 
a pleasant coolness beyond, so he 
withdrew his hand and, somewhat 
timidly, entered. 

The room illuminated itself. He 
looked around. The chairs, the 
tables, everything was just as he 
had seen it from outside, through 
the window. And the thing that 
looked like a viseo was a viseo. 

He walked over to it and ex- 



lit 



OAIAXY SCIENCi MCTIOM 



aintncd it curiously. It was one of 
the large models, receiver and 
record-player, with its own 
built-in library of tapes. He left 
it and went on through an interior 
doorway into the back of the 
house. 

Here were two more rooms, a 
bedroom and a kitchen. The bed 
was another force-field — expen- 
sive and luxurious. The kitchen 
had a table and storage lockers 
through whose transparent win- 
dows he could see enough eat- 
ables and drinkables stored there 
to last one man a hundred years. 

At the thought of one* man liv- 
ing in this lap of luxury for a 
hundred years, the earlier realiza- 
tion that he was alone came back 
to him. This was not his place. 
It did not belong to him. The 
owner could not be far off. 

He went hurriedly back through 
the living room and out into the 
sunlight. The green turf stretched 
away on every side of him, 
empty, unrelieved by any other 
living figure. 

“Hello!” he called. 

His voice went out and died, 
without echoes, without answer. 
He called again, his voice going 
a trifle shrill. 

“Hello? Anybody here? Hello! 
Hellor 

There was no answer. He 
looked down the gravel path to 
his right, to the short horizon. He 
looked down the path to his left 



and his breath caught in his 
throat. 

He began to run in a senseless, 
brain-numbing, chest-constricting 
panic. 

T he grass streamed silently by 
on both sides of him, and his 
feet pounded on the gravel of 
the path. He ran until his lungs 
heaved with exhaustion and tlie 
pounding of his heart seemed to 
shake his thin body, when at last 
fatigue forced him to a halt. He 
stood and looked around him. 

The building was out of sight 
now, and he found himself on the 
edge of a forest of tall flowers. 
Ten feet high or more, they lay 
like a- belt across his way, and 
the path led through them. Green- 
stemmed, with long oval leaves 
gracefully reaching out, with flat, 
broad-petaled blue blossoms 
spread to the bright sky, they 
looked like the graceful creations 
of a lost dream. There was no 
odor, but his^ head seemed to 
whirl when he looked at them, 
Somehow they frightened him; 
their height and their multitude 
seemed to look down on him as 
an intruder. He hesitated at that 
point where the path began to 
wind among them, no longer 
straight and direct as it had been 
through the grass. He felt irra- 
tional fear at the thought of 
pushing by them — but the lone- 
liness behind him was worse. 



THE MOUSETRAP 



He went on. 

Once among the flowers, he lost 
all sense of time and distance. 
There was nothing but the gravel 
beneath his feet, a patch of blue 
sky overhead and the flowers, 
only the flowers. For a while he 
walked; and then, panic taking 
him again at the apparent end- 
lessness of the green stems, he 
burst into a fear-stricken run 
which ended only when exhaus- 
tion once more forced him to a 
walk. After that, he plodded 
hopelessly, his desire to escape 
fighting a dull battle with in- 
creasing weariness. 

TTE came out of it suddenly. 

One moment the flowers were 
all around him; then the path 
took an abrupt twist to the right 
and he was standing on the edge 
of % new patch of turf through 
which the path ran straight as 
ever. 

He stopped, half disbelieving 
what he saw. With a little inar- 
ticulate grunt of relief, he stepped 
free of the flower-shadowed path- 
way and went forward between 
new fields of grass. 

He did not have much farther 
to go. In a few minutes he topped 
a small rise and his walk came to 
an end. 

There, in front of him, was the 
building. 

The very same building he had 
run away from earlier. 



TTE approached it slowly, try- 
■* ing to cling to the hope that 
it was not the same building, that 
he had somehow gone somewhere 
else, rather than that he had 
traveled in a circle. But the iden- 
tity was too complete. There was 
the large window, the chairs, the . 
viseo. There was the door to 
the bedroom and the one to the 
kitchen. 

Moving like a man in a dream, 
he walked forward and into the 
house. 

He knew where he was going 
now. He remembered what he 
had seen before — a bottle of light, 
amber-colored liquid among the 
stores in the kitchen. He found it 
among a thickly crowded bank 
of others of its kind and took off 
the cap humbly. He put the bottle 
to his lips. 

The liquor burned his throat. 
Tears sprang to his eyes at the 
fire of it and he was glad, for the 
sensation gave him a feeling of 
reality that he had not yet had 
among the dreamlike emptiness 
of his surroundings. 

Taking the bottle, he went out- 
side to the grass in front of the 
building. 

“This is good,” he thought, 
taking another drink, and sitting 
down on the grass. “This is here 
and now, a departure point from 
which to figure out the situation. 
I drink, therefore I am. The be- 
ginning of a philosophy.” 



130 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



He drank again. 

“But where do I go from 
there? Where is this? Who am I?” 

He frowned suddenly. Well, 
who was he? The question went 
groping back and lost itself in a 
maze of shadows where his mem- 
ory should have been. Almost, 
but not quite, he knew. He shook 
his head impatiently. 

“Never mind that now. Plenty 
of time to figure that out later. 
The thing is to discover where 
I am, first.” 

Where was he. then? The drink 
was beginning to push soft fin- 
gers of numbness into his mind. 
The grass was Earth grass and 
the building was a human-type 
structure. But the flowers weren’t 
like anything, on Earth. Were 
they like anything on any other 
planet he’d ever been on? 

He wrinkled his forehead in a 
frown, trying to remember. If 
only he could recall where he had 
been before he woke aip! He 
thought he had been on Earth, 
but he wasn’t sure. The things 
he wanted to remember seemed 
to skitter away from his recollec- 
tion just before he touched them. 

He lay back on the grass. 

Where was he? He was in a 
place where one walked in circles. 
He was in a place where things 
were too perfect to be natural. 
The grass looked like a lawn and 
there were acres of it. There were 
acres of flowers, too. But the 



grass was real grass: and from 
what he’d seen of the flowers, 
they were real and natural as 
well. * 

Yet there .was something wrong. 
He felt it. There was a strange 
air of artificiality about it all. 

He lay back on the grass, star- 
ing at the sky and taking occa- 
sional drinks from the bottle. 
Without realizing it, he was get- 
ting very drunk. 

His mind cast about like the 
nose of a hunting dog. Something 
about the place in which he 
found himself was wrong, but 
the something continued to elude 
him. Maybe it had to do with the 
fact that he couldn’t seem to re- 
♦lember things. Whatever it was, 
it was something that told him 
clearly and unarguably that he 
wasn’t on Earth or any of the 
planets he’d ever known or heard 
of. 

He looked to the right and he 
looked to the left. He looked 
down and he looked up, and re- 
alization came smashing through 
the drunken fog in his mind. 

There was no Sun in the sky. 

He rose to his feet, the bottle 
in his hand, for a horrible sus- 
picion was forming in his mind. 
He turned away from the house, 
looked at the chronometer on his 
wrist and began to walk. 

When he got back to the house, 
the bottle tn his hand was empty. 
But all the alcohol inside him 



fNE MOUSETRAP 



121 



could not shut out the truth from 
his mind. Ht was alone, on a tiny 
world that was half green grass 
and half great blue flowers. A 
pretty world, a silent, dreaming 
world beneath a bright, eternal 
sky. An empty world, and he 
was on it — 

Alone. 

VIE went away from the world, 
as far as drink would take 
him. And for many days— or was 
it weeks? — reality became a hazy 
thing, until the poor, starved 
body could take no more and so 
collapsed. Then there was no re- 
membrance, but when he came 
back to himself at last, he found 
fi little miracle had happenet^. 
during that blank period. 

Memory of a part of his life 
had come back to him. 

B orn and raised on Earth, 
in Greater Los Angeles, he 
had been pitched neck and crop 
1>1T his native planet at the age 
of twenty-one, along with some 
other twenty million youngsters 
for which overcrowded Earth had 
DU room. Overpopulation was a 
problem. Those without jobs were 
deported when they reached the 
age of maturity. And what chance 
had a poor young man to get an 
Earthsidc job when rich colonials 
wanted them? For Earth was the 
genter of government and trade. 
He was spared the indignity of 



deportation. His familj' scraped 
up the money for passage to Rigcl 
IV and arranged a job in a typog- 
raphers’ office for him there. 
They would continue to pull 
strings, they said, and he was to 
work hard and save as much as 
he could in the hope of being 
able eventually to buy his way 
back — although this was a for- 
lorn hope; the necessary bribes 
for citizenship would run to sev- 
eral million credits. They saw 
him off with a minimum of tears; 
Father. Mother, and a younger 
sister, who herself would be leav- 
ing in a couple of years. 

He went on to Rigel IV, filled 
with the determination of youth 
to conquer all obstacles; to make 
his fortune in the approved fash- 
ion and return, trailing clouds of 
glory, to his astounded and de- 
lighted parents. 

But Rigel IV proved strangely 
indifferent to his enthusiasm. The 
earlier cojonists had seen his kind 
before. They resented his Earth- 
pride, they laughed at his 
squeamishness where the local 
Aliens were concerned, and they 
played upon his exaggerated fears 
of the Devils, as the yet-unknown 
alien races beyond the spatial 
frontier were called. They had 
only contempt for his job in the 
typographers’ office and no one 
liked him well enough to offer 
him any other occupation. 

So he sat at his desk, turning 



192 



GALAXY SCiINCE FICTION 



out an occasional map copy on 
his desk duplicator for the stray 
customers that wandered in. He 
stared out the window at the red 
dust in the streets and in the air, 
calculating over and over again 
how many hundreds of years of 
hoarding his salary would be re- 
quired to save up tlie bribe money 
for citizenship, and dreaming of 
the lost beauty of the cool white 
moonlight of Earth. 

A bove all else, he remembered 
and yearned for moonlight. 
It became to him the symbol of 
all that he wished for and could 
not have. And he began to seek it 
-^more and more often— in the 
contents of a bottle. 

And so the breakup came. 
Though there was little to do at 
his job, a time came when he 
could not even do that, but 
sprawled on his bed in the hotel, 
dreaming of moonlight, while the 
days merged one into the other 
endlessly. 

Termination came in the form 
of a note from his office and two 
months' salary. 

Further than that, his recov- 
ered memory would not go. He 
lay for the equivalent of some 
days, recuperating; and when he 
was able to move around again, 
he discovered to his relief that 
he was now able to leave the re- 
maining bottles in the liquor sec- 
tion alone. 



S HORTLY after, he discovered 
that the house walls were hon- 
eycombed with equipment and 
control panels, behind sliding 
doors. He gazed at these with 
wonder, but for some reason 
could not bring himself to touch 
them. 

One in particular drew him and 
repelled him even more than the 
^Test. It was by far the simplest 
of the lot, having only four plain 
switches on it. The largest one, 
a knife switch with a red handle, 
exerted the strongest influence 
over him. The urge to pull it was 
so strong that he could not bear 
to stand staring at it for more 
than a few minutes, without 
reaching out his hand toward it. 
But no sooner did his fingertips 
approach the red handle than a 
reaction set in. A paralysis rooted 
him to the spot, his heart pounded 
violently, and sweat oozed coldly 
from his pores. He would be 
forced then to close the panel and 
not go back to it for several hours. 
Finally, he compromised with 
his compulsion. There were three 
smaller switches: and finally, 

gingerly, he reached out his hand 
tc the first of these, one time 
when he had been staring at it, 
and pulled it 
The light went out. 

He screamed in blind animal 
fear and slapped wildly at the 
panel. The switch moved again 
beneath his hand and the light 



THE MOUSETRAP 



* 123 



came back on. Sobbing, he leaned 
against tlie panel, gazing in over- 
whelming relief out through the 
big front window at the good 
green grass and the brightness of 
the sky beyond. 

It was some time before he 
could bring himself to touch that 
switch again. Finally he sum- 
moned up the nerve to pull it 
once more and stood a long while 
in the darkness, with thudding 
heart, letting his eyes grow ac- 
customed to it. 

Eventually he found he could 
see again, but faintly. He groped 
his way through the gloom of the 
front room and lifted his face to 
the sky outside, from which the 
faint glow came. 

And tins time he did not cry 
out, 

The night sky was all around 
him and filled with stars. It .was 
th? bright shine of them that il- 
luminated his little world with a 
sort of ghostly brilliance. Stars, 
stars, in every quarter of the 
heavens, stars. But it was not 
ju.st their presence alone that 
struck him rigid with horror. 

Like all of his generation, he 
knew how the stars looked from 
every planet owned by man. 
What schoolchild did not? He 
could glance at the stars from 
a position in any quarter of the 
human sector of space and tell 
roughly from the arrangement 
, overliead where that position was. 



Consequently, his sight of the 
stars told him where he was now; 
and it was this knowledge that 
gripped him with mind-freezing 
terror. 

He was adrift, alone on a little, 
self-contained world, ten miles in 
diameter, a pitiful little bubble 
of matter, in the territory of the 
Devils, in the unknown regions 
beyond the farthest frontier. 

He could not remember what 
happened immediately after that. 
Somehow, he must have gotten 
back inside and closed the light 
switch, for when he woke again 
to sanity, the light had hidden 
the stars once more. But fear had 
come to live with him. He knew 
now that malice or chance had 
cut him irrevocably off from his 
own kind and thrust him forth 
to be the prey or sport of what- 
ever beings held this unknown 
space. 

But from that moment, mem- 
ory of his adult life began to re- 
turn. Bit by bit. from the further 
past, and working closer in time, 
it came. And at first he welcomed 
almost sardonically the life-story 
it told. Now that he knew where 
he was, whatever his history 
turned out to be, it could make 
no difference. 

As time went on, though, inter- 
est in the man he had been ob- 
sessed him, and he seized on 
each individual recollection as it 
emerged from the mist, grasping 



124 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



fit it almost frantically. The viseo 
that he kept running, purely for 
the sake of human-seeming com- 
panionship, played unheeded 
while he hunted desperately 
through the hazy corridor of his 
mind. 

H e remembered his name now. 
It was Helmut Perran. 
Helmut Perran had gone from 
despondency to hopelessness after 
his dismissal from the job at the 
typographers. He was a confirmed 
alcoholic now, and with the labor 
shortage common on an expand- 
ing planet, he had no trouble 
finding enough occasional work 
to keep himself in liquor. He 
nearly succeeded in killing him- 
self off, but his youth and health 
saved him. 

They dragged him back to ex- 
istence in the' snake ward of the 
local hospital, and psychoed a 
temporary cure on him. Helmut 
had gone downhill socially until 
he reached rock bottom, until 
there was no further for him to 
go. He began to come back up 
again, but by a different route. 

He came up in the shadowy 
no-man’s-land just across the 
border of the law. He was passer, 
pimp and come-on man. He 
fronted for a gambling outfit. He 
made some money and went into 
business for himself as a pro- 
moter of crooked money-making 
schemes, and he ended as advance 



agent for a professional sm^'»- 
gling outfit. 

Oddly enough, the business was 
only technically illegal. With the 
mushroom growth of the worlds, 
dirty politics and graft had mush- 
roomed as well. Tariffs were 
passed often for the sole purpose 
of putting money in the pockets 
of customs officials. Unnecessary 
red tape served the same purpose. 
The upshot was that graft be- 
came an integral part of inter- 
stellar business. The big firms 
had their own agents to cut 
through these difficulties witli the 
golden knife of credits. The 
smaller firms, or those who could 
less afford the direct graft, did 
business with smuggling outfits. 

These did not actually smug- 
gle; they merely saw to it that 
the proper men and machines 
were blind when a shipment that 
had been arranged for came 
through regular channels. They 
dealt with the little men — the 
spaceport guard, the berthing 
agent, the customs agent who 
checked the invoice — ^where the 
big firms made direct deals with 
the customs house head, or the 
political appointee in charge of 
that governmental section. It was 
more risky than the way of the 
big firms, but also much less ex- 
pensive. 

Helmut Perran, as advance 
agent, made the initial contact”. 
It was his job to determine who 



THE MOUSETRAP 



were the men who would have to 
be fixed, to take the risk of ap- 
proaching them cold, and either 
to bribe them into cooperation or 
make sure that another man who 
could be bribed took their place 
at the proper time. 

It was a job that paid well. 
But by this time, Helmut was 
ambitious. He was sick of ille- 
• gality and he thought he saw a 
way back to Earth and the moon- 
light. He shot for a job as fixer 
with one of the big firms that 
dealt directly with the head men 
in Customs — and got it. 

It was as simple as that. He 
was now respectable, wealthy, 
and his chance would come. 

He worked for the big firm 
faithfully for five years before it 
did. Then there came along a 
transfer of goods so large and 
invofved that he was authorized 
to arrange for bribes of more 
than three million credits. He 
made the arrangement, took the 
credits, and skipped to Earth, 
where, with more than enough 
money to cover it, he at last 
bought his coveted Earth citzen- 
ship. 

After that, they came and got 
him, as he knew they would. 
They got him a penal sentence 
of ten years, but they couldn’t 
manage revocation of the citzen- 
ship. Through the hell of the 
little question room and the long 
trial, he carried miniature pic- 

126 



ture in his mind of the broad 
white streets of Los Angeles in 
the moonlight and the years 
ahead. 

¥>UT there the memory ended. 

He had a vague recollection 
of days in some penal institution, 
and then the mists were thick 
again. He beat hard knuckles 
against his head in a furious rage 
to remember. 

What had happened? 

They couldn’t have touched 
him while he was serving his sen- 
tence. And once he had put in 
his ten years, he would be a free 
man with the full rights of his 
Earth citizenship. Then let them 
try anything. They were a firm 
of colossal power, but Earth was 
filled with such colossi; and the 
Earth laws bore impartially on 
all. What, then, had gone wrong? 

He groaned, rocking himself in 
his chair like a child, in his mis- 
ery. But he was close to the 
answer, so close. Give him just 
a bit more time— 

But he was not allowed the 
time. Before he could bring the 
answer to the front of his mind, 
the Devils came. 

Their coming was heralded by 
the high-pitched screaming of a 
siren, which cut off abruptly as 
the spaceship came through the 
bright opaqueness of the sky, like 
the Sun through a cloud, and 
dropped gently toward the 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



ground, its bright metal sides 
gleaming as if they had been 
freshly buffed. It landed not fifty 
feet from him. The weight of it 
sank its rounded bottom deep be» 
neath the surface of the sod, so 
that it looked like a huge metal 
bowl turned face-down on the 
gras,^. 

A port opened in its side and 
two bipedal, upright creatures 
stepped out of it and came to- 
ward him. 

As they approached him, time 
seemed to slip a cog and move 
very slowly. He had a chance to 
notice small individual differ- 
ences between them. They were 
both shorter than he by at least 
a head, although the one on l5el- 
mut's left was slightly taller. 
They were covered with what 
seemed to be white fur, all but 
two little black buttons of eyes 
apiece. And they seemed to have 
more than the ordinary number 
of jtynts in their legs and arms, 
for these limbs bent like rubber 
hose when they walked or ges- 
ticulated. They were carrying a 
square box between them. 

Helmut stood still, waiting for 
them. The only thought in his 
mind was that now he would 
never get to know how he had 
happened to be here, and he was 
Forry, for he had grown fond of 
the man he had once been, not 
the one he later turned out to be, 
as you might be fond of a dis- 



tant relative. Meanwhile, he could 
feel his breath coming with great 
difficulty and his heart thumping 
inside him as it had thumped 
that time he had first tried the 
switch that turned off the light. 

He watched them come up to a 
few feet ^om him and set the 
box down. 

As soon as it was resting on the 
grass, it began to vibrate and a 
hum came from it that was 
pitched at about middle C. It 
went up in volume until it was 
about as loud as a man saying 
“aaaah” when a doctor holds 
down his tongue with a depresser 
to look at his throat. When it 
had reached this point, it broke 
suddenly from a steady sound 
into a series of short, intermittent 
hums that gradually resolved 
themselves into syllables. He re- 
alized that the box was talking 
to him, one syllable at a time. 

“Do not be afraid,” it said. 
“We wi sh to tal k to you.” 

Helmut said nothing. He 
wanted to hear what the box had 
to say, but, at the same time, a 
compulsion was mounting within 
him. It screamed that these oth- 
ers were horrible and unnatural 
and dangerous, that nothing they 
said was true, that he must turn 
and run to safety before it was 
too late. 

They had been watching him 
for a long time, the box went on 
to 'tell him. They had listened 



THI MOUSETRAP 



127 



from a safe distance to the viseo 
tapes he had run on the machine 
and finally translated his Ian* 
guage. They had done their best 
to understand him from a dis- 
tance and had failed, for he 
seemed to be unhappy and to 
dislike being where he was and 
what he was doing, ^nd if this 
was so. why was he doing it? 
They did not understand. Where 
had he come from and who was 
he? Why was he here? , 

Helmut looked at the four little 
black eyes that gazed at him 
like the puzzled, half -friendly 
eyes of a bear he had seen in 
a zoo while he was a boy back 
on Earth. There was no possible 
way for white-furred faces to 
have shown expression, but he 
thought he read kindness in them, 
and long loneliness of his stay 
on ftie sphere rose up and almost 
choked him with a desire to an- 
swer them. But that savagely ir- 
rational comer of his mind 
surged forward to combat the im- 
pulse toward friendliness. 

He opened his mouth. Only a 
garbled croak came out. 

He turned and ran. 

He raced to the building and 
burst through the entrance. He 
threw himself at the panel that 
hid the switches, pulling it open 
and sliding aside the door that 
covered them. He reached for the 
red-handled switch^ hesitated, 
and looked over his shoulder at 



the two creatures. They stood as 
he had left them. For the last 
time, he wavered under the urge 
to go back to them, to tell them 
his stoyy, at least to listen to their 
side once — first. 

But they were Devils! 

The fear and anger inside him 
surged up, beating down every- 
thing else. He grasped the red 
switch firmly and threw it home. 

What followed after that was 
nightmare. 

/ 

TTE had been sitting for a long 
time in the cold hall and no- 
body had paid any attention to 
him. Occasionally, men in Space 
Guard uniforms or the white 
coat? of laboratory workers would 
go past him into the Warden’s 
office, and come out again a little 
later. But all of these went past 
him as if he did not exist. 

He shifted uncomfortably in 
the chair they had given him. 
They had outfitted him in fresh 
civilian clothes, which felt cling- 
ing and uncomfortable after the 
long months of running around 
on the sphere half-naked. The 
clothes, like the stiff waiting- 
room chair, the hall, and the pa- 
rade of passing men all chafed 
on him and shrieked at him tiiat 
he did not belong. He hated them. 

The parade in and out of the 
office went on. 

Finally, the door to the office 
opened and a young Guardsman 



128 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



stuck his head out. 

“You can come in now,” he 
said. 

Helmut got to his feet. He did 
it awkwardly, the unaccustomed 
clothing seeming to stick to him, 
his legs half-asleep from the long 
wait in the chair. 

He walked through the door 
and the young Guard shut it be- 
hind him. The Warden, a spare 
man of Helmut’s age, with a mili- 
tary stiffness in his bearing and 
noncommittal mouth and eyes, 
looked up from his desk. 

“You can go, Price,” he said 
to the Guard; and, to Helmut, 
“Sit down, Perran.” 

Helmut lowered himself clum- 
sily into the armchair across 
the desk from the Warden as the 
young Guardsman went out the 
door. The Warden stared at him 
for a moment. 

“Well, Perran,” he said, “you 
deserve to congratulate yourself. 
You’re one of our lucky ones.” 

Helmut stared back at him, 
iwimbly, for a long time. Then, 
abruptly, it was like being sick. 
Without warning, a sob came 
choking up in his throat and he 
laid his head on the desk in front 
of him and began to cry. 

The Warden lit a cigarette and 
smoked it for a while, staring out 
the window. The sound of Hel- 
mut’s sobs was strained in the 
silence of the office. When they 
had dwindled somewhat, the 



Warden spoke again to Helmut. 

“You’ll get over it,” he said. 
“Thafs just the conditioning 
wearing off.. If you didn’t break 
down and cry, you’d have been, 
in serious psychological trouble. 
You’ll be all right now.” 

Helmut lifted his head from the 
desk. 

“What happened to me?” he 
asked, his throat hoarse. “Wh'^t 
happened?” 

The Warden puffed on his ciga- 
rette. “You were assigned to one 
of our Mousetraps,” he answered. 
“It’s a particularly hazardous 
duty for which criminals can 
volunteer. Normally, we only get 
men under death sentence or 
those with life terms. You’re an 
exception.” 

“But I didn’t volunteer!” 

“In your case,” said the War- 
den, “there may have been some 
dirty work along the line. We 
are investigating. Of course, if 
that turns out to be the case, 
you’ll be entitled to reparation. 
I don’t suppose you remember 
how you came to be on the 
Mousetrap, do you?” 

ELMUT shook his head. 

“It’s not surprising,” said 
the Warden. “Few do, although, 
theoretically, the conditioning is 
supposed to disappear after you 
capture a specimen. Briefly, you 
were given psychological treat- 
ment in order to fit you for cx- 



THE MOUSETRAP 



.129 



istence alone in the Mousetrap. 
It’s necessary, because usually 
our Baits live their life out on 
the sphere without attracting any 
alien life. You were one of the 
lucky ones, Perran.” 

“But what is it?” asked Hel- 
mut. “What is it for?” 

“The Mousetrap system?" the 
Warden answered. “It’s our first 
step in the investigation of alien 
races with a view to integrating 
them into human economy. We 
take a sphere like the one you 
were on, put a conditioned crim- 
inal on it, and shove it off into 
unexplored territory where we 
have reason to suspect the pres- 
ence of new races. With luck, the 
alien investigates the sphere and 
our conditioned Bait snaps the 
trap shut on him. Lacking luck, 
the Mousetrap is either not in- 
vestigated or the aliens aren’t 
properly trapped. Our condi- 
tioned man, in that case, blows it 
up— and himself along with it. 

“As I say, you were lucky. 
You’re back here safe on Kron- 
bar. and we’ve got a fine couple 
of hitherto undiscovered speci- 
mens for our laboratory to inves- 
tigate. What if those creatures 
had beaten you to the swntch?” 
Helmut shuddered and covered 
his eyes, as if, by doing so, he 
could shut the memory from his 

mind. 

“The Guard Ship was so lot^ 
coming." he muttered. “So long! 



Days. And I had to watch them 
all that time caught in a force- 
field like flies in a spider web. 
I couldn’t go away without step- 
ping out of the building and be- 
ing caught myself. And they kept 
talking to me with that little box 
of theirs. They couldn’t under- 
stand why I did it. They kept 
asking me over and over again 
why I did it. But they got weaker 
and weaker and finally they died. 
Then they just hung there be- 
cause the force-field wouldn’t let 
them fall over.” 

His voice dwindled away. 

The Warden cleared his throat 
with a short rasp. “A trying time. 
I’m sure," he said. “But you have 
the consolation of knowing that 
you have performed a very useful 
duty . for the human race." He 
stood up. “And now, Unless you 
have some more questions—” 
“When can I go home?" asked 
Helmut. “Back to Earth.” 

The Warden looked a trifle em- 
barrassed. “Your capture of the 
aliens entitles you to a pardon; 
and of course you have Earth 
Citizenship— but I’m afraid we 
won’t be able to let you leave 
Kronbar." 

Helmut stared at him from a 
face that seemed to have gone 
entirely wooden. Hig lips moved 
stififly. 

“Why not?” he croaked. 

“Well, you see,’’ said the War- 
den, leading the way to a dif- 



1»0 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



ferent door than the one through 
which Helmut had entered, “these 
specimens you brought back seem 
to be harmless, and inside of a 
month or two we’ll probably have 
a task force out there to put them 
completely under our thumb. But 
we’ve had a little trouble before, 
when we’d release a Bait and 
it would turn out later tKat the 
aliens had in some way infected 
him. So there happens to be a 
blanket rule that successful Baits 
have to live out the rest of their 
life on Kronbar.” He opened the 
door invitingly. “You can go out 
this way, if you want. Private en- 
trance. It leads directly to the 
street.” 

S LOWLY, Helmut rose to his 
feet and shambled over to the 
door. For one last time a vision 
of moonlight on the bay at Santa 
Monica mocked him. A wild 
scheme flashed through his head 
in which he overpowered the 



Warden, stole his uniform and 
bluffed his way to a Guard Pa- 
tjol ship, where he forced the 
crew to take him either to Earth, 
or, failing that, out beyond the 
Frontier to warn the white-furred 
kin of the two alien beings he 
had killed. 

Then the scheme faded from 
his mind. It was no use. The 
odds were too great. There were 
too many like the Warden. There 
were always too many of them 
for Helmut and those like him. 
He turned away from the War- 
den, ignoring the Warden’s out- 
stretched hand. 

He went out the door and down 
the steps into the brilliant day- 
light of Kronbar. 

Kronbar, the Bright Planet, so- 
called because, since it winds an 
eccentric orbit around the twin 
stars of a binary system, there is 
neither dark nor moonlight, and 
the Sun is always shining. 

—GORDON H. DICKSON 



I’VE GOT THEM ALL!!-EVERY ONE!! 

All th« acience fiction, fnntnsy, weirfi, and supcrnatoral books in print in America or 
Enelanill I can tuppljr anythine you see mentioned, listed or offered anywherel Send 10« 
for my new Giant Printed Checklist of over 1000 titles, including over 250 paperbound 
books at 26c each np. Or. if you are nearby N.Y.C.. visit me at my home (Just two miles 
from N.y.O. line) which is literally crammed with thousands of back issue cnagazineR and 
used books in addition to the largest variety of new books of this kind in the world, Phone 
me at Floral Park 2.5800, (you can dial it), and I’ll gladly furnish directions to get her#. 

FRANK A. SCHMID 

Franklin Square, L. I., N. Y. 



42 Sherwood Avenue 




TALES FROM THE UNDER- 
WOOD by David H. Keller. Ark- 
ham House-Pellegrini 8b Cudahy, 
New York, 1952. 322 pages, $3.95 

F lat statement; This is a 
must for anyone who has the 
slightest interest in the origins of 
modern science fiction and the 
works of its Old Masters. 

This does not. mean that all 23 
stories in the book are master- 
pieces; far from it. Dr. Keller is 
an uneven writer and some of 
the tales have an almost juvenile 
touch to them. It does not mean, 
either, that the stor'ies are all 
science fiction. 

Dr. Keller divides his book 



into thirds — science fiction, fan- 
tasy, and psychiatry. The latter 
stories are classifiable either as 
fantasy or as science fiction, true, 
but they have an added quality 
stemming from the fact that they 
are written by a physician with a 
perceptive knowledge of the hu- 
man mind. 

Mistake it not. these stories are 
genuinely good reading, with very 
few exceptions: and, in addition, 
they are also highly original as 
ideas. 

For the information of col- 
lectors, only four tales have been 
previously anthologized: “The 

Worm,” “The Literary Cork- 
screw,” “The Revolt of the Pe- 



132 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



drstrians.’* and “The Ivy War” 
of horrid memory. 

THE MIXED MEN by A. E. 
van Vo^t. Gnome Pres9, New 
York, 1952. 223 peges, $2.75 

T^HIS handsomely jacketed 
book, the fourth van Vogt to 
be reviewed in these columns 
since January of this year, has 
finally crystalized an opinion I 
have been coming to for a num- 
ber of years. 

A. E. van Vogt is not a science 
fiction writer. He is a science fan- 
tasist, a teller of impossible fairy 
tales with a pseudo- or semi- 
scientific frame. This does not 
detract from my pleasure in 
reading his books, but it does 
shift one’s view of science fiction, 
and delimits the field consider- 
ably. Perhaps it needed it. 

In van Vogt, a concept usually 
is poetic rather than scientific. 
His formula is grandiose, perhaps 
a little megalomaniac, but unde- 
niably imaginative — product of a 
mind that will not be tied down 
by the basics of the modem phy- 
sical, chemical, or psycho-biolo- 
gical sciences. 

In the present slim book, made 
up of three novelets frqm As- 
founding during the 1943-1945 
heyday, we* have the following 
wonders: (1) An Earth-origin 

civilization on the “Planets of 
the Fifty Suns” in the Magellanic 



Clouds. (2) The concept that this 
civilization grew from a small 
group of men who had been “Del- 
lianized,” or made into supermen 
by being passed through a matter 
transmitter and thus given Su- 
pernal powers. (3) The notion 
that these Dellians and non- 
Dellians (i.e., normal humans) 
could, by interbreeding, produce 
a new race with two minds — the 
human and the superhuman. (4) 
The concept of a true Earth ex- 
ploratory spaceship with a crew 
of thirty thousand — and, of 
course, fantastic weapons and 
thigamijigs as well. (5) A plot 
involving such ordinary wonders 
as the complete atomic di.ssolu- 
tion of human bodies and th'eir 
perfect reconstitution by (believe 
it or not) a Machine! 

Personally 1 low it all. but \ 
don’t think it’s science fiction. It 
belongs to a special literature of 
the fantastic, which is, like the 
works of E. E. Smith. Ph.D., 
powered by just about the same 
psychodynamical motors as those 
which William Steig uses, in a 
satirical, not a romantic, way. in 
his famous Small Fry series, 
“Dreams of Glory.” This is 
atomic-powered wish fulfillment! 

All right, now that I know, I 
can relax and enjoy the stuff. 

CLOAK OF AESIR by John W. 
Campbell, Jr. Shasta Publishers, 
Chicago, 1952. 255 pages, $3.00 



★ * ★ ★ ★ SHEIF 



"VJ/HILE wf are on the subject 
** of science fantasy, let's take 
a look at the early “Don A. Stu- 
art*' stories by the editor of As- 
tounding Sc/er»ce Fiction. Here is 
one of the true progenitors of 
van Vogt’s special type of “im- 
possible” science fiction. The 
book contains seven novelets, in 
*all of which the Unlikely is de- 
feated by the Impossible. 

Seven stories — all beyond be- 
lief. all science fantasy, all some- 
w'hat overwritten, but still well 
done: you cannot very readily 
forgot them. 

The Machine series of three 
stories (like all the rest reprinted 
from Astounding during the late 
30s and early 40s) is about a 
"Machine’* that runs the world 
for mankind, but abandons it. 
leaving alfaii*s' in chaos, when it 
becomes obvious that Man is 
growing lazy and useless. Then 
the Alien Invaders ("Tharoo”) 
take over what’s left of Man and 
rule until some superscicntific hu- 
man rebels force them to move 
to Venus. Here is the optimistic 
theme of recivilizing that runs 
thiough most of the Stuart sto- 
ries. 

"Forgetfulness.” a truly fine 
tale, finds Man so far advanced 
that he has forgotten such primi- 
tive techniques as atomic energy: 
he is really civilized. 

The two Aesir stories deal with 
tl»e Sarn matriarchy — aliens who 



are eventually defeated by n fan- 
tastic gadget that absorbs all en- 
ergy. 

Its temperature, according to 
its inventor, is an astonishing 
minus 55.000 degrees. 

And so it goes; deeply ai>peal- 
ing adult bedtime stories, in some 
instances actually productive of 
nice ideas (particularly “Forget- 
fulness”), but in general a little 
on the inenarrable (look it up in 
your unabridged) side of beltev- 
ability. 

Of the seven items, only two 
(“Forgetfulness” and “The Ma- 
chine”) have previously Ix'en in 
science fiction collections. 

TAKEOFF by Cyril M. Korn- 
bluth. Doubleday & Co., New 
York, 1952. 218 pa^es, $2.75 

TT’S impossible to review tl»is 
item adequately without giv- 
ing away the major plot gimmick. 
All I can say is that the tale is 
exciting; it grips your attention: 
it has a wonderful sense of real- 
ity, despite the essential im- 
plausibility of its major premise: 
and yet some parts are painfully 
possible in today’s atmosphere of 
scientific secrecy. In some ways 
it is a* rather daring parable of 
the left hand not knowing what 
the right hand doeth. 

Briefly, the story (which Is 
placed a modest few decades 
from t»ow) deals with the secret 



134 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



manufacture of the first Moon- 
ship. Impossible? Who knows, 
when you think of the Manhat- 
tan Project? Of course, the frame 
of reference in which the ship is 
built here is unlikely, to say the 
least — and the screwy way in 
which the atomic fuel for the 
ship is developed is even more 
of a boff (as the “joy-poppers 
and main-liners” — see page 201 
of this book) would put it. 

On the other hand, in the proc- 
ess of telling itself the story has 
some diamond-pointed things to 
say about Security, Bureaucra- 
cy, Military Matters, Sex, Poli- 
tics, and the Press. 

A worthwhile addition to Dou-. 
bleday’s science fiction series — 
never before appearing in print, 
cither in a magazine or elsewhere; 
and (for once) good enough to 
make one wonder why it wasn’t 
serialized. All that extra money 
lost! 

KRAKATIT: AN ATOMIC 
PHANTASY, by Karel Capek. 
Arts, Inc., New York, 1951. 294 
pa^es, $2. .SO 

AREL Capek, the Czech 
writer who invented the 
word “robot” (in his play R.U.R. 
— “Rursum’s Universal Robots”) 
wiote this very curious item, the 



title of which is derived from the 
volcano Krakatoa, in the early 
Twenties. He undoubtedly in- 
tended it as a frantic plea against 
war. 

This it still is, though a rather 
confused one. 

But in addition (and this is 
why it is now reprinted) Capek 
also knew something about 
atomic physics. Consequently, he 
previsioned the atom bomb some 
20 years before it happened. He 
certainly deserves a medal for 
this, too. 

Capek also wrote an almost 
psychopathic book. It opens with 
a brilliant, frightening description 
of an. attack of brain fever, in the 
person of Prokop, the hero — a 
simpleton full of power, an ex- 
plosive prone, a sick genius. And 
a fool when it comes to women. 
Sex, brain fever — what else? Of 
course, a surrealist satire on 
power lusts in all sorts of people 
— clergymen, generals, princesses, 
businessmen. 

After you have read and then 
sat back and considered it with, 
care, Krakatit turns out to be a 
savagely pertinent book about the 
misuse of Science. It is not par- 
ticularly easy reading or par- 
ticularly attractive, but it is 
damnably compelling. 

— F CONKUN 



M9 



★ ★ ★ ★ ★ SHILf 




The Altruist 



By JAMES H. SCHMITZ 

When something disappears, there is afways 
a reason. But it may be pleasanter to have 
the mystery than find out the explanation I 



PUT them right there!” 
I Colonel Olaf Magrums- 
B sen said aloud. 

He was referring to his office 
scissors, with which he wanted 
to cut some string. The string, 
designed for official use, was al- 
most unbreakably tough, and 
Colonel Magrumssen had wrap- 
ped one end of it around a pack- 
age containing a set of reports of 
the Department of Metallurgy, 
which was to be dispatched im- 
mediately. The other end of the 
string led through a hole in the 
wall to an automatic feeder* 
spool somewhere behind the wall, 
and tiie scissors should have been 
on a small desk immediately un- 



der the point where the string 
emerged, because that was where 
the colonel always left them. Just 
now. however, they weren’t there. 

There wasn’t anything else on 
the desk that they might have 
slipped behind; they weren’t ly- 
ing on the floor, and the desk had 
no drawers into which he could 
have put them by mistake. They 
were simply and inexplicably 
gone. 

“Damn!’* he said, holding the 
package in both hands and look- 
ing about helplessly. He was all 
alone in the Inner Sanctum which 
55eparated his residential quarters 
from the general office area of 
the Department of Metallurgy, 



136 



GALAXY iCfENCE FICTION 




THE AITRUI ST 



197 




The Sanctum, constructed along 
the lines of a bank vault, con- 
tained Metallurgy’s secret files 
and a few simple devices 
connected with an automatic 
transportation system between 
Metallurgy and various other 
government departments. There 
was nothing around that would 
be useful in the present emer- 
gency. 

“Miss Eaton!” the colonel bel- 
lowed, in some exasperation. 

Miss Eaton appeared in the 
doorway a minute later, looking 
slightly anxious and slightly re- 
sentful. which was her normal 
expression. Otherwise, she was a 
very satisfactory secretary and 
general assistant to the colonel. 

“Your scissors, Miss Eaton!” 
he ordered, holding up his pack- 
agc^“Kindly cut this string!” 

IIAISS Eaton’s gaze went past 
him to the desk, and her ex- 
pression became more definitely 
resentful. 

‘^es. sir,” she said. She step- 
ped up and, with a small pair of 
scissors attached by a decorative 
chain to her belt, cut the string. 

“Thank you,” said the colonel. 
“That will be all.” 

“There’s a Notice of Transfer 
regarding Charles E. Watterly 
lying on your desk.” Miss Eaton 
said. “You were to pass on it 
early this mOrning.” 

“I know.” The colonel frowned. 



“You might get out Watterly’s 
record for me, Miss Eaton.” 

“It’s attached to the Notice of 
Transfer,” Miss Eaton told him. 
She went out without waiting for 
a reply. 

The colonel dropped the pack- 
age into a depository that would 
dispatch it to its destination un- 
touched by human hands, and 
turned to leave the Inner Sanc- 
tum. Still irritated by the dis- 
appearance, he glanced back at 
the desk. 

And there the scissors were, 
just where he remembered having 
left them! 

The colonel stopped short. 
“Eh?” he inquired incredulously, 
of no one in particular. 

A long - forgotten childhood 
memory came chidingly into his 
mind . . . 

"Lying right there!" a ghostly 
voice of the past was addressing 
him again. "If it were a snake" 
the voice added severely, rub- 
bing the lesson in, “it would bite 
you!" 

The colonel picked up the 
scissors rather gingerly, as if 
they might bite him. at that. He 
looked surprised and alert now, 
all distracting annoyances for- 
gotten. 

Colonel Magrumssen was a 
logical man. Now that he thought 
back, there was no significant 
doubt in his mind that, the eve- 
ning before, he had left those 



Ut 6ALAXYSCIENCIFICT10N 



scissors on that dt*sk. Nor that, 
after opening the Sanctum and 
sealing the package this morning, 
he had discovered they were gone. 

Nor. of course, finally, that 
they now had returned again. 

Those were facts. Another fact 
was that, aside from himself, no- 
body but Miss Eaton had entered 
the Inner Sanctum meanwhile— 
and she hadn’t come anywhere 
near the desk. 

Touching a sticky spot on one 
of the blades of the scissors, the 
colonel dabbed at it and noticed 
something attractively familiar 
about the pale brown gumminess 
on his finger. 

He put the finger to his mouth. 
Why. certainly, he told himself — 
it's just taffy. 

His mind paused a moment. 
Just taffy! it repeated. 

Now wait a minute, the col- 
onel thought helplessly. 

One could put it this way. he 
decided: at some time last night 
or this morning, an Unseen 
Agency had borrowed his scissors 
for the apparent purpose of cut- 
ting taffy with them, and then 
had brought his scissors back . . . 

P erhaps it was the complete 
improbability of that explana- 
tion which made him want to 
accept it immediately. In the 
humdrum, hard-working decades 
following Earth’s Hunger Years, 
Colonel Magrumssen had become 



a hobbyist of tlie Mysterious, and 
this was the most mysterious- 
looking occurrence he'd yet run 
into personally. He'd been trained 
in espionage during the last coun- 
ter-revolution, and while the lack 
of further revolutions ultimately 
had placed him in an executive 
position in Metallurgy, his in- 
terests still lay in investigating 
the unexplained, the unpredict- 
able, ia human behavior, and 
elsewhere. 

As a logical man. however, he 
realized he’d have to put in his 
customary day’s work in Metal- 
lurgy before he could investigate 
the unusual behavior of a pair of 
ortree scissors. 

He locked the double doors of 
the Inner Sanctum behind him — 
locked them, perhaps, with ex- 
ceptional attention to the fact 
that they were being locked — and 
went into the outer offices, to 
decide on Charles E. Watterly’s 
Notice of Transfer. / 

The Department of Metallurgy, 
this section of which was under 
Colonel Olaf Magrumssen’s su- 
pervision, was as smoothly oper- 
ating an organization as any 
government coordinator could 
want to see. So was every other 
major organization — the simple 
reason being that employees who 
couldn't meet the stiff require- 
ments of governmental employ- 
ment were dropped quietly and 
promptly into the worldwide 



TH€ ALTRUIST 



labor pool known as Civilian 
General Duty. Once CGD swal- 
lowed you, it was rather difficult 
to get out again; and life at those 
levels was definitely unattractive. 

Charles E. Watterly’s standing 
in Metallurgy was borderline at 
best, the colonel decided after 
going briefly over his record — a 
rather incredible series of prepos- 
terous mistakes, blunders, slip- 
ups and oversights, ^^atterly’s 
immediate superior had made up 
a Notice of Transfer as a matter 
of course and sent it along to the 
colonel’s desk to be signed. Sign- 
ing it would send Charles E. 
Watterly automatically to Civil- 
ian General Duty. 

The colonel was a tolerant 
man. He didn’t care a particular 
hang how the Department of 
Metallurgy fared, providing his 
own position wasn’t threatened. 
But even colonels who failed to 
keep their subordinates in line 
could wind up doing Civilian 
General Duty. 

could afford to give the 
unfortunate Watterly one more 
chance, the colonel decided. A 
man who could operate so con- 
sistently against his own interests 
should be worth studying for a 
while! And since Watterly’s su- 
perior had passed the buck by 
making out the Notice of Trans- 
fer, the colonel summoned Miss 
Eaton and instructed her to have 
Watterly placed on his personal 



staff, on probation. 

Miss Eaton made no comment. 
The airtight organization which 
was beginning to haul humanity, 
uncomfortably and sometimes 
brutally enough, out of the ca- 
tastrophic decline of the Hunger 
Years did not encourage com- 
ment on one’s superior's decisions. 

“Mr. John Brownson of Sta- 
tistics is here to see you," she 
announced. 

"^^HE two per cent Normal 
^ Loss," John Brownson, a 
personal assistant of the Minister 
of Statistics, informed Colonel 
Magrumssen presently, "has 
shown striking variations of late, 
locally. That’s the situation in a 
nutshell. The check we're con- 
ducting in your department is of 
a purely routine nature.” 

He was relieved to hear that, 
the colonel said drily. What did 
Statistics make of these varia- 
tions? 

Brownson looked surprised. 
"We've made nothing of -them 
as yet,” he admitted. “In time, 
we hope, somebody will.” He 
paused and looked almost em- 
barrassed. “Now in your depart- 
ment, we have localized one ar^a 
of deviation so far. It happens to 
be the cafeteria.” 

The colonel stared. “The cafe- 
teria?” 

“The cafeteria,” Brownson con- 
tinued, flushing a trifle, “shows 



140 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



currently a steady point three 
increase over Normal Loss. Pro- 
cessed foodstuffs, of course, are so 
universally affected by the loss 
that almost any dispersal point 
can be used conveniently to check 
deviations. Similar changes are 
reported elsewhere in the capital 
area, indicating the possible de- 
velopment of a local trend . . 

‘'Trend to what?” the colonel 
demanded. 

Brownson shrugged thought- 
fully. He wasn’t, he pointed out. 
an analyst; he only produced the 
statistics. 

“Well, never mind,” said the 
colonel. “Our poor little cafe- 
teria, eh? Let me know if any- 
thing else turns up, will you?” 

Now that was an odd thing, he 
reflected, still idly, while he gazed 
after Brownson’s retreating back. 
When you got right down to it, 
nobody actually seemed to know 
why there should be a two per 
cent untraceable loss in the an- 
nual manipulations of Earth’s 
commodities! People like Brown- 
.son obviously saw nothing re- 
markable in it. To them, Normal 
Loss had the status of a natural 
law. and that was that. 

Why. he realized, his reaction 
hovering somewhere between 
amusement and indignation, he’d 
been fooled into accepting that 
general viewpoint himself! He’d 
let himself be tricked into accept- 
ing a “natural law” which in- 



volved an element of the 
completely illogical, the inex- 
plicable. 

The colonel felt a flush of 
familiar excitement. Look, he 
thought, this could be — why, this 
is big! Let's look at the facts! 

He did. And with that, almost 
instantly, a breathtakingly im- 
probable but completely convinc- 
ing explanation was there in his 
mind. 

Furthermore, it tied in. per- 
fectly with the temporary disap- 
pearance of his office scissors that 
morning! 

Colonel Magrumssen conceded, 
however, with something like 
awed delight at his own clever- 
ness, that it was going to be a 
little difficult to prove anything. 

T^HE problem suddenly had be- 
* come too intriguing to put off 
entirely till evening, so the col- 
onel sent Miss Eaton out to buy 
a bag of the best available taffy. 
And he himself made a trip to 
his private library in his living 
quarters and returned with a 
couple of books which had noth- 
ing to do with his official duties, 

He proceeded to study them 
until Miss Eaton returned with 
the taffy, which he put in a 
drawer of his desk. Then, tapping 
the last page of the text he had 
been studying — the chapter was 
titled “Negative Hallucinations” 
—he reviewed the tentative con- 



THE ALTRUIST 



141 



elusions he’d formed so far. 

The common starting point in 
the investigation of any unusual 
occurrence was to assume that 
nothing just occurred, that every- 
thing had a cause. The next step 
being, of course, the assumption 
that anything that happened was 
part of a greater pattern of 
events; and that if one got to see 
enough of it, the greater pattern 
generally made sense. 

The mysterious disappearance 
and reappearance of his office 
scissors certainly seemed unusual 
enough. But when one tied it in 
with humanity’s casual accept- 
ance of the fact that some two 
per cent of Earth’s processed 
commodities disappeared trace- 
lessly every year, one might be 
getting a glimpse of a possible 
ma^r pattern. 

The colonel glanced back over 
a paragraph he had marked in 
“Negative Hallucinations”: 

Negative hallucinations are compre- 
hensive in the sense that they also 
negate the sensory registration of any 
facts that would contradict them. In- 
stall in a hypnotic subject the convic- 
tion that there is no one but himself 
in the room: he will demonstrate that 
he docs not permit himself to realize 
that he cannot see when another person 
present places both hands over his 
eyes . . . 

Assuming that it wasn’t too 
logical of humanity to take Nor- 
mal Loss for granted, one could 
conclude that humanity as a 



whole might be suffering from a 
very comprehensive negative hal- 
lucination — in which case, it 
wouldn’t, of course, be permitting 
itself to wonder about Normal 
Loss! 

It was a rather large assump- 
tion to make, the colonel ad- 
mitted; but he might be in a 
position to test it now. 

For one then could assume also 
that there was somebody around, 
some Unseen Agency, who was 
benefiting both by Normal Loss 
and by humanity’s willingness to 
accept Normal Loss without fur- 
ther investigation. 

An outfit who operated as 
smoothly as that shouldn’t really 
have bungled matters by return- 
ing his scissors under sUch sus- 
picious circumstances. But even 
that sort of outfit might be handi- 
capped by occasional members 
who weren’t quite up to par. 
Somebody, say, who was roughly 
the equivalent of a Charles E. 
Watterly. 

The notion satisfied the col- 
onel. He unlocked a desk drawer 
which contained a few items of 
personal interest to him. A gun, 
for one thing — in case life even- 
tually turned out to be just a 
little too boring, or some higher- 
up decided some day that Col- 
onel Magrumssen was ripe for a 
transfer and CGD. A methodical 
man should be prepared for any 
eventuality. 



142 



GAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



Beside the gua, carefully 
wrapped, was a small crystal 
globe, a souvenir from a vacation 
trip he’d made to Africa some 
years before. There had been a 
brief personal romance involved 
with the trip and the globe; but 
that part of it no longer inter- 
ested the colonel very much. 

The thing about the globe right 
now was that, when one pressed 
down a little button set into its 
base, it demonstrated a gradual 
succession of tiny landscapes full 
of the African sunlight and with 
minute animals and people walk- 
ing about in it. All very lifelike 
and arranged in such a manner 
that one seemed to be making a 
slow trip about the continent. It 
was an enormously expensive 
little gadget, but it might now 
be worth the price he’d paid for 
it. 

The colonel wrapped the globe 
back up and set it on the desk 
next to the bag of taffy. Then he 
went about finishing up the 
day’s official business, somewhat 
amazed at the fact that he 
seemed to be accepting his oWn 
preposterous theory as a simple 
truth — that invisible beings 
walked the Earth, lived among 
men and filched their sustenance 
from Man’s meager living sup- 
plies , . . 

But he hadn’t, he found, the 
slightest desire to warn humanity 
against its parasites! That had 



nothing to do with the fact that 
nobody would believe him any- 
way. So far, he rather approved 
of the methods employed by the 
Unseen Agency. 

By the time the next twenty- 
four hours were over, he also 
might have a fair idea of its pur- 
pose. 

He laughed. The whole busi- 
ness was really outrageous. And 
he realized that, for some reason, 
that was just what delighted him 
about it. 

TTE was sitting In his study, 
shortly after nine o’clock that 
evening, when he had .the first 
indication that his plans were be- 
ginning to work out. 

Up till then, he had remained 
in a curiously relaxed frame of 
mind. Having accepted the ap- 
parent fact of the Unseen 
Agency’s existence, the question 
was whether its mysterious pow- 
ers went so far that it actually 
could read his thoughts and 
know what he intended to do be- 
fore he got around to doing it. 
If it could, his tricks obviously 
weren’t going to get him any- 
where. If it couldn’t, he should 
get results — eventually. He felt 
he lost nothing by trying. 

He was aware of no particular 
surprise then when things began 
to happen. It was as if he had 
expected them to happen in just 
that way. 



THE AlTKUiST 



T4f 



He had pushed away the pa- 
pers he was workiag on and 
leaned back to yawn and stretch 
for a moment. As if by accident, 
his gaze went to the mantel above 
the study’s electronic fireplace, 
where he had placed the little 
crystal globe showing Africa’s 
scenic wonders. He had left it 
switched to the picture of a 
burned brown desert, across 
which a troop of lean, pale an- 
telopes trotted slowly toward a 
distant grove of palm trees. 

From where he sat, he could 
see that the crystal no longer 
showed the desert view. Instead, 
Kilimanjaro’s snow-covered peak 
was visible in it, reflecting the 
pink light of an infinitesimal 
morning sun. 

The colonel frowned slightly, 
permitting a vague sense of dis- 
turbance — an awareness of some- 
thing being not quite as it should 
be — to pass through his mind. 
Presumably, that awareness would 
reflect itself to some degree in 

his expression and might be no- 
ticed there by a sufficiently alert 
observer. 

He dismissed the feeling and 
turned back to his papers. 

What he caught in that mo- 
ment, from the corner of his eye, 
pouldn’t exactly be described as 
motion. It was hardly more than 
a mental effect, a fleeting impres- 
sion of shifting shadows, light 
and lines, as if something had 



alighted for an instant on the 
farthest edge of his vision and 
been withdrawn again. 

The colonel didn’t look up. A 
chill film of sweat covered the 
backs of his hands and his fore- 
head. That was the only indica- 
tion he gave, even to himself, of 
feeling any excitement. Without 
moving his eyes, he could tell that 
the gleaming crystal globe had 
vanished from its place on the 
mantel. 

TTOW did they do it? In some 
way, they were cutting off 
the links of awareness that existed 
between all rational human be- 
ings. They were broadcasting 
the impression that they, and the 
things they touched, and the 
traces of their activities did not 
exist. Once the mind accepted 
that, it would refuse to acknowl- 
edge any contradictory evidence 
offered by its senses of reasoning 
powers. 

He’d started out by assuming 
that there was something there, 
so the effect of the negative hal- 
lucination was weakened in him. 
Every new advance in under- 
standing he made now should 
continue to weaken it — and there 
was one moment when the Un- 
seen Agency’s concrete reality 
must manifest itself in a manner 
which his mind, at this point, 
couldn’t refuse to accept. That 
was the instant in which it was 



144 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



manipulating some very concrete 
item, such as tlie crystal globe, in 
and out of visibility. 

It was obvious, at any rate, 
that the Agency couldn’t read his 
thoughts. He’d tricked it, precise- 
ly as he’d set out to do, into 
making a hurried attempt to re- 
solve his apparently half-formed 
suspicion that someone might 
have been playing with the globe 
behind his back. It showed a cer- 
tain innocence of mind. But, 
presumably, people who had such 
unusual powers mightn’t l3l ac- 
customed to the sort of devious 
maneuvering and conscious con- 
trol of emotion and thought 
which was required to survive at 
an acceptable level in the col- 
onel’s everyday world. 

He became aware suddenly of 
the fact that the crystal globe 
had been returned to its place on 
the mantel. For that same in- 
stant. he was aware also of a 
child - shape, definitely a girl, 
standing on tiptoe before the 
mantel, still reaching up toward 
the globe — and then fading 
quickly, soundlessly, beyond the 
reach of his senses again. 

That was considerably more 
than enough— 

He’d been thinking of some 
super-powered moron, of the 
Charles E. Watterly type, not a 
child! But it made even better 
sense this way, and it took only 
a few seconds flexibility to 



adapt his plans to include the 
new factor. 

T he colonel took two white 
cards and a lead pencil out 
of a drawer of the desk at which 
he was working. He unhurriedly 
printed three words on the first 
card and five on the second. Put- 
ting the cards into his pocket, he 
finally looked up at the globe. 

As he expected, it 'showed the 
scene he’d last been studying 
himself — ^brown desert, the grove 
of palms and the antelopes. 

He gazed at it for a moment, 
as if absently accepting this cor- 
rection of the Unseen Agency’s 
lapse as any good hypnotic sub- 
ject should. And then, still casu- 
ally, he took the bag of fresh 
taffy he’d had Miss Eaton buy 
that afternoon out of the desk 
drawer. He opened it, opening 
his mind simultaneously to the 
conviction that- the child-shape 
would come now to this new bait, 
Almost Instantly, he realized, 
with a sense of sheer delight, that 
she was there! 

At any rate, there was an 
eagerness, an innocent greed, 
swirling like a gusty, soundless 
little wind ’of emotion about him, 
barely checked now by the neces- 
sity of remaining unseen. He took 
out a piece of the taffy and 
popped it solemnly into his 
mouth, and the greed turned into 
« shivering young rage of frus- 



THE ALTRUIST 



145 



tration. and a plea, and a prayer: 
Oh, make him look away! Just 
once/ 

The colonel put the paper bag 
into his pocket, walked deliber- 
ately to the mantel and propped 
cine of the two cards up against 
the globe. 

There was a fresh upsurge of 
interest, and then an almost 
physically violent burst of other 
emotions behind him. 

For the three words on the card 
I SAW you! 

Whistling soundlessly, the col- 
onel waited a moment and re- 
placed that card with the next 
one. He scratched his jaw and, 
as an apparent second thought, 
produced three pieces of taffy 
from his pocket, which he ar- 
ran^^d into an artistic little pyr- 
amid in front of the card. He 
turned and walked back to his 
desk. 

When he looked around from 
there, the card was gone. 

So were the three pieces of 
taffy. 

He waited patiently for over a 
minute. Something white fluttered 
momentarily before the globe on 
the mantel and the card had 
reappeared. For a moment again, 
too. the child became visible, 
looking at him still half in alarm, 
but also half in laughter now, 
and then vanished once more. 

Reading what was written o« 







3AIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




the card, the colonel knew he’d 
won the first round anyway. His 
reaction wasn’t the feeling of 
alert, cautious triumph he’d ex- 
pected, but a curious, rather un- 
accountable happiness. 

The five words he’d printed on 
the card had been : 
don’t worry — I won’t tell 
That message was crossed out 
now with pencil. Underneath it, 
two single words had been printed 
in a ragged slope, as if someone 
had been writing very hurriedly: 
THANK you! 

T>Y two o’clock that night, the 
colonel was still wide awake, 
though he had followed his me- 
thodical pattern of living by going 
to bed at midnight, as usual. 
Whatever the Unseen Agency’s 
reaction might be, it wouldn’t be 
bound by any conventional re- 
strictions. 

There was the chance, of 
course, that they would decide 
it was necessary to destroy him. 
Since he couldn’t protect himself 
successfully against invisible op- 
ponents, the colonel wasn’t tak- 
ing any measures along that line. 
He’d accepted the chance in 
bringing himself to their atten- 
tion. 

They also might decide simply 
to ignore him. He couldn’t, he 
conceded, do much about it if 
they did. Everyday humanity 
had its own abrupt methods of 



THE ALTRUIST 



147 





dealing with, anyone who tried 
to dispel its illusions, and he, for 
one, knew enough not to make 
any such attempt. But the *Un- 
seen Agency should have curiosity 
enough to find out how much he 
actually knew and what he in- 
tended to do about it. . . . 

His eyes opened slowly. The 
luminous dial of the clock beside 
his bed indicated it was three- 
thirty. He had fallen asleep 
finally; and now tJiere were — 
presences — in his room. 

After his first involuntary 
start, the colonel wag careful not 
to move. The channels of aware- 
ness that had warned of the ar- 
rival^ of the Unseen Agency 
seemed to be approximately the 
same he had used unwittingly in 
sensing the emotions of the child 
earlier that night. Under the cir- 
ci^rnstances, he might regard 
them as more reliable than his 
eyes or ears. 

Apparently encouraged by his 
acceptance of the fact, his mind 
reported promptly that the child 
herself was among those present 
— and that there was a new qual- 
ity of stillness and expectancy 
about her now, as if this were a 
very important event to her, too. 

Of the others, the colonel grew 
aware more gradually. But as he 
did, he discovered the same sense 
of waiting expectancy about 
them, almost as if they were try- 
ing to tell him that the next 



move actually was up to him, not 
them. In the instant he formed 
that conclusion, his feeling of 
their general presence seemed to 
resolve itself into the recognition 
of a number of distinct personali- 
ties who were presenting them- 
selves to him, one by one. 

The first was a grave, aged 
kindliness, but with a bubble of 
humor in it — almost, he thought, 
surprised, like somebody’s grand- 
mother ! 

Two and Three seemed to be 
masculine, darker, thoughtfully 
judging. 

And, finally, there was Four, 
who appeared to come into the 
room only now, as if summoned 
from a distance to see what her 
friends had found — a p>ersonality 
as clear and light as the child’s, 
but an adult intelligence never- 
theless. Four joined the others, 
observant and waiting. 

Waiting for what? 

That, the colonel gathered, was 
for him to experience in himself 
and understand. His awareness of 
their existence had been enough 
to extract their attention to him. 
Moving and living securely be- 
yond the apparent realities of 
civilization, as if it were so much 
stage scenery which had hypno- 
tized the senses of all ordinary 
human beings, they seemed ready 
to welcome and encourage any 
discoverer, without fear or hos- 
tility, as one of themselves. 



148 



6AIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



He could sense dimly the qual- 
ity of their strange ability, and 
the motives that had created it. 
The ruthless mechanical rigidity 
of the human society that had 
developed out of the Hunger 
Years had been the forcing factor. 
These curious rebels must have 
felt a terrible necessity to escape 
from it to have found and de- 
veloped in their own minds a 
means of bypassing society so 
completely — the means being, es- 
sentially, so perfect a control of 
the outgoing radiations of thought 
and emotion that they created 
no slightest telltale ripple in the 
ocean of the subconscious human 
mind and left a negative impres- 
sion there instead. 

But they were not hiding from 
anyone who followed the same 
path they had taken. 

There was a sudden unwilling- 
ness in him to go any further in 
that direction at the moment. 
Full understanding might lie in 
the very near future; but it was 
still in the future. 

As if they had accepted that, 
too, he could sense that the mem- 
bers of the Unseen Agency were 
withdrawing from him and the 
room. Four was last to go, linger- 
ing a moment after the others 
had left, as if looking back at 
him;>a light, clear presence as 
definite as spoken words or the 
touch of a hand. 

A moment after she had left. 



the colonel realized, with some- 
thing of a shock, that for the first 
time in his adult life, he had 
fallen in love. . , , 

F irst thing he did next morn- 
ing was to have himself meas- 
ured for a new uniform of the 
kind he’d always avoided — the 
full uniform of his rank, white 
and gold, and with the extra little 
flourishes, the special unauthor- 
ized richness of cloth that only 
a colonel-and-up could afford or 
get away with. It was the sort 
of gesture, he felt, that Four 
might appreciate. And he had a 
reason for wanting to stay away 
from Metallurgy that morning 
for the four hours or so it might 
take to complete the suit. 

He was in the position of a 
strategist who, having made an 
important gain, can take time out 
to consolidate it and consider his 
next moves. He preferred to do 
that beyond the range of any too 
observant eyes — and mind. 

That Four and her kind should 
be content to live ~ well, like 
mice, actually — behind the scen- 
ery of the world, subsisting on 
the crumbs of civilization, was 
ridiculous. They seemed to have 
no real understanding of their 
powers, and of the uses to which 
they could be put. 

It was the most curious sort of 
paradox. 

The colonel found a park bench 



THE ALTRUIST 



4t 




ISO 



GALAXY SCtCNCE FICTION 




and settled down to investigate 
the problems presented by the 
paradox. 

He was. he decidedyS practical 
man. As such, he’d remained oc* 
eluded, till now, to their solution 
of the problems of a society with 
which he was basically no more 
contented than they had been. 
But he had adjusted effectively 
to the requirements of that so* 
ciety, while they had withdrawn 
from it in the completest possible 
fashion this side of suicide. 

To put it somewhat differently, 
he had learned how to influence 
and manipulate others to gain 
for himself a position comfort- 
ably near the top. They had 
learned how to avoid being 
manipulated. 

But if a man could do that— 
without losing the will to employ 
his powers intelligently! 

The colonel checked the surge 
of excitement which arose from 
that line of reflection, almost 
guiltily. The structure of society 
might be — and was — more than 
ripe for an overhauling. But he 
was quite certain that Four’s peo- 
ple would not be willing to follow 
his reasoning just yet. Their 
whole philosophy of living was 
oriented in the opp>osite direction 
of ultimate withdrawal. 

But ^ive me time, he thought. 
Just ^ive me time! 

Four showed herself to him 
that afternoon. 






THE ALTRUIST 




He’d returned to his office— 
the white-and-gold uniform had 
created a noticeable stir in the 
department— and instructed Miss 
Baton to send someone out for 
at lunch tray from the cafeteria. 

A little later, he suddenly real- 
ized that Four was standing in 
the door of the office behind him. 
He knew then that, for some rea- 
son, he had expected her to come. 

He was careful not to look 
around, but he sensed that she 
both approved of the white uni- 
form and was laughing at him for 
having put it on to impress her. 
The colonel’s ears reddened 
slightly. He straightened his 
shoulders, though, and went on 
working. 

Next, the child-shape slipped 
by before his desk, an almost 
visibility. He glanced up at it, 
an<? it smiled and disappeared as 
abruptly as if it had gone through 
a door in mid-air and closed the 
door behind it. A moment later» 
Four stood just beyond the desk, 
looking down at the colonel, no 
less substantial than the material 
•f the desk itself. 

He stared up at her, unable to 
epeak, aware only of a slow, 
strong gladness welling up in him. 

Then Four vanished — 

Someone had opened the door 
of the office behind him. 

“Your lunch, sir,” the familiar 
voice of Charles E. Watterly mut- 
tered apologetically. 



The colonel let his breath out 
slowly. But it didn’t matter too 
much, he supposed. Four would 
be back. 

“Thank you, Watterly,” he 
said, with some restraint. “Set it 
down, please.” 

Watterly’s angular shape ap- 
peared beside him and suddenly 
seemed to teeter uncertainly. The 
colonel moved an instant too late. 
The coffee pot lay on its side in 
the brown puddle that filled the 
lunch tray on the desk. The rest 
of the contents were about evenly 
distributed over the desk, the 
carpet, and the white uniform. 

On his feet, flushed and angry, 
the colonel looked at Watterly. 

“I’m sorry, sir!” Watterly had 
fallen back a step. 

Now, this was interesting, the 
colonel decided, studying him 
carefully. This was the familiar 
startled white face, its slack 
mouth twisted into an equally 
familiar, frightened grin. But why 
hadn’t he ever before noticed tha» 
incredible, cold, hidden malice 
staring at him out of those pale 
blue eyes? 

Not a bungler. A hater. The 
airtight organization of society 
kept it suppressed so well that 
he had almost forgotten how the 
underdogs of the world could 
hate! 

He let the rage in him ebb 
away. 

Anger was pointless. It was 



1S2 



6AIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



the compliment one paid an 
.equal. To withdraw beyond the 
.reach of human malice, as Four 
and the rest of them had done, 
was a better way — for the weak. 
For those who were not, the 
simplest and most effective way 
was to dispose of the malicious 
by whichever methods were han- 
diest, and forget about them. 

A t seven in the evening, Miss 
Eaton looked in at the col- 
onel’s central office and inquired 
whether he would need her any 
more that day. 

“No, thank you, Miss Eaton,” 
said the colonel, without looking 
up. “A few matters I want to 
finish by myself. Good night.” 
There was silence for a mo- 
ment. Then Miss Eaton’s voice 
blurted suddenly, “Sometimes it’s 
much better to finish such mat- 
ters in the morning, sir!” 

The colonel glanced up in sur-. 
prise. Coming from Miss Eaton, 
the remark seemed out of char- 
acter. But she looked slightly 
resentful, slightly anxious, as al- 
ways, and not as if she attributed 
any importance to her words. 

“Well, Miss Eaton,” the col- 
onel said genially, while he won- 
dered whether it had been a 
coincidence, “I just happen to 
prefer not to wait till tomorrow.” 
Miss Eaton nodded, as though 
agreeing that, in that case, there 
was no more to be said. He lis- 



tened to her heels clicking away 
through the glass-enclosed aisles 
of the general offices, and then 
the lights went out there, and 
Colonel Magrumssen was sitting 
alone at his desk. 

It was odd about Miss Eaton. 
He was almost certain now it had 
been no coincidence. Her person- 
ality which, for a num’oer of 
years, he’d felt he understood 
better than one got to understand 
most people, had revealed itself 
in a single sentence to be an 
entirely different sort of person- 
ality — a woman, in fact, about 
whom he knew exactly nothing! 
At any other time, the implica- 
tions would have fascinated him. 
Tonight, of course, it made no 
difference any more. 

His gaze returned reflectively 
to a copy of the Notice of Trans- 
fer by which Charles E. Watterly 
had been removed from Metal- 
lurgy some hours before, to be 
returned to the substratum of 
Earth’s underdogs, where he ob- 
viously belonged. 

It had seemed the logical thing 
to do, the colonel realized with 
a feeling of baffled resentment. 
What did one more third-rate 
human life among a few billions 
matter? 

But it seemed his unseen ac- 
quaintances believed it did mat- 
ter, very much. Sornewhere deep 
in his mind, ever since he had 
signed the Transfer, a cold, dead 



THE ALTRUIST 



153 



area had been growing which 
told him, as clearly as if they had 
announced it in so many words, 
that he wouldn’t be able to con- 
tact them again. 

Notices of Transfer weren’t re- 
vocable, but he felt, too, that it 
wouldn’t have done him much 
good if they had been. One com- 
mitted the unforgivable sin, and 
that was that. 

He had pushed Watterly back 
down where he belonged. And he 
was no longer acceptable. 

There was one question he 
would have liked answered, the 
colonel decided, as he went on , 
methodically about the business 
of cleaning up his department’s 
top-level affairs for his successor. 

What, actually, was the unfor- 
givable sin? 

A,» talf hour later, he decided 
he wasn't able to find the answer. 
Something involved with Chris- 
tian charity, or the lack of it, 
apparently. He had sinned in de- 
grading Watterly. Civilization 
similarly had sinned on a very 
large scale against the major part 
of humanity. And so they had 
withdrawn themselves both from 
civilization and from him. 

He shook his head. He might 
still be misjudging their motives 
— ^because it still didn’t seem 
quite right! 

On the proper form and in a 
neat, clear hand> he filled out his 
resignation from Metallurgy and 



from life, to make it easy for the 
investigators. He frowned at the 
line headed reasons given and 
decided to leave it blank. 

He laid down the pen and 
picked up the gun and squinted 
down its barrel distastefully. And 
then somebody who now appear- 
ed to be sitting in the chair on 
the other side of his desk re- 
marked : 

“That mightn’t be required, 
you know.” 

T he colonel put the gun down 
and folded his hands on the 
desk. “Well, John Brownson!” he 
said, politely surprised, “You’re 
one of them, too?” 

The assistant to the Minister 
of Statistics shrugged. 

“In a sense,” he admitted, “In 
about the same way that you’re 
one of them.” 

The colonel thought that over 
and acknowledged that he didn’t 
quite follow. 

“It’s very simple,” Brownson 
assured him, “once you under- 
stand the basic fact that we’re 
all basically altruists — you and 
I and every other human being 
on Earth.” 

“All altruists, eh?" the colonel 
repeated doubtfully. 

“Not, of course, always con- 
sciously. But each of us seems to 
know instinctively that he or she 
is also, to spme extent, an irra- 
tional and therefore potentially 



1S4 



GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 




THE ALTRUIST 



1M 





dangerous animat. The race is 
developing mentally and emo" 
tionally, but it hasn’t developed 
as far as would be desirable as 
yet.” 

“That, at any rate, seems to 
be a fact,” the colonel conceded. 

“So there is a conflict between 
our altruism and our irrational- 
ity. To solve it, we— each of us — 
limit ourselves. We do not let our 
understanding and abilities de- 
velop beyond the point at which 
we can trust ourselves not to use 
them against humanity. Once 
you accept that, everything else 
is self-explanatory.” 

Now how could Brownson hope 
to defend such a statement, the 
colonel protested after an as- 
tonished pause, after taking ^ 
look at history? Or, for that mat- 
ter, at some of the more out- 
standing public personalities in 
their immediate environment? 

But the assistant to the Min- 
ister of Statistics waved the ob- 
jection aside. 

“Growth isn’t always a com- 
fortable process,” he said. “Even 
the Hunger Years and our pres- 
ent social structure might be re- 
garded as forcing factors. The 
men who appear primarily re- 
sponsible for this stage of man- 
kind’s development may not 
consciously look on themselves as 
altruists, but basically, as I said, 
that is the only standard by 
which we do judge our activities 



— and ourselves! Now, as for 
you — ” 

“Yes?y said the colonel. “As 
for me?” 

“Well, you’re a rather remark- 
able man, Colonel Magrumssen. 
You certainly gave every indica- 
tion of being pi'epared to expand 
your understanding to a very un- 
usual degree — which was why,’’ 
John Brownson added, somewhat 
apologetically, “I first directed 
your attention to the possible im- 
plications of Normal Loss. After- 
ward, you appear to have fooled 
much more careful judges of hu- 
man nature than I am. Though, 
of course,” he concluded, “you 
may not really have fooled them. 
It’s not always easy to follow 
their reasoning.” 

“Since you’re being so informa- 
tive,” the colonel said bluntly, 
“I’d like to know just who and 
what those people are.” 

“They’re obviously people who 
can and do trust themselves very 
far,” Brownson said evasively. 
“A class or two above me, I’m 
afraid. I don’t know much about 
them otherwise, and I’d just as 
soon not. You’re a bolder man 
than I am, Colonel. In particu- 
lar, I don’t know anything about 
the specific group with which you 
became acquainted.” 

“We didn’t stay acquainted 
very long.” 

“Well, you wouldn’t,” Brown- 
son agreed, studying him curi- 



GAIAXY SCIENCE FICTION 



ously. '‘Still, it was an unusoal 
aGhirv«ment.” 

T he colonel said nothing for a 
moment. He was experiencing 
again a hot resentment and what 
he realized might be a rather 
childish degree of hurt, and also 
the feeling that something splen- 
didly worthwhile had become ir- 
retrievably lost to him through a 
single mistake. But, for some 
reason, the feeling was much less 
disturbing now. 

"The way it seemed to me,” he 
said finally, "was that they were 
willing to accept me as an equal 
— whatever class they’re in — un- 
til I fired Watterly. That wasn't 
it. then?” 

"No, it wasn’t. They were 
merely acknowledging that you 
had acepted yourself as being in 
that class, at least temporarily. 
That seems to be the only real 
requirement.” 

"If I knew instinctively that I 
couldn’t meet that requirement, 
on a completely altruistic basis,” 
the colonel said carefully, "why 
did I accept myself as being in 
their /Class even temporarily?” 
John Brownson glanced reluc- 
tantly at the gun on the desk. 
For a moment, the colonel was 
puzzled. Then he grinned apolo- 
getically. 

“Well, yes, that might explain 
it.” he admitted. "I believe I’ve 
had it in mind for some time. 



Life had begun to look pretty un- 
interesting.” He poked frowning- 
ly at the gun. "So it was just a 
matter of satisfying my curiosity 
—first?” 

"I wouldn’t know what your 
exact motive was,” Brownson 
said cautiously. “But I presume 
it went beyond simple curiosity.” 
“Well, supposing now,” said 
the colonel, tapping the gun, 
"that on considering what you’ve 
told me. I decided to change my 
mind.” 

Brownson smiled. "If you 
change your decision, you’ll do it 
for good and sufficient reasons. 
I’d be very happy — and, inci- 
dentally, there’s no need to blame 
yourself for Watterly. Watterly 
knew he couldn’t trust himself in 
any position above Civilian Gen- 
eral Duty. If you hadn’t had him 
sent back there, he would have 
found someone else to do it, Self- 
judgment works at all levels.” 

"I wasn’t worrying much about 
Watterly,” the colonel said. He 
reflected a moment. "What ac- 
tually induced you to come here 
to talk to me?” 

"Well,” said Brownson care- 
fully, “there was one who ex- 
pressed an opinion about you so 
strongly that 4t couldn’t be ig- 
nored. I was sent to make sure 
you had the fullest possible un- 
derstanding of what you were 
doing.” 

The colonel stared. "Who ex- 



THE ALTRUIST 






pressed an opinion alxjut me?” 
**Your Miss Eaton.” 

“IVIISS Eaton?” The colonel 
almost laughed. For a mo- 
ment, he'd had a wild, irrational 
hope that Four had showed con- 
cern about him. But Four hardly 
would have been obliged to go to 
John Brownson for help. 

“Miss Eaton.” Brownson smiled 
wryly, ‘‘has a wider range of 
understanding than most, but not 
enough courage to do anything 
about what she knows. The 
bravest thing she ever did was 
to speak to you as she did to- 
night. After that, she didn’t know 
what else to do. so— well, she 
prayed. At any rate, it seemed to 
be a prayer to her.” 

“For me?” 

‘Wes, for you.” 

“Think of that!" said the col- 
onel. astonished. “That was why 
you came?’* 

“That’s it.” / 

The colonel thought about 
Miss Eaton for a moment, and 
then of what a completely fas- 
cinating, interesting world it was 
—if one could only become really 
aware of it. It seemed unreason- 
able that people should be going 
tlu'ough life in blind, uneasy dis- 
satisfaction, never quite realizing 
what was going on around and 
behind them. ... 

Of course, a good percentage 
of them might drop dead in sheer 

m 



fright if they ever got a sudden 
inkling of what was there. For 
one thing, quiet power enough 
to extinguish nine-tenths of the 
human life on Earth between one 
second and the next. 

And the thought of that power 
and various perhaps not too ra- 
tional manipulations of it, he re* 
fleeted truthfully, might have 
been the really fascinating part 
of it all to him. 

“Well, thank you, Brownson,” 
he said. 

There was no answer. 

W HEN the colonel looked up, 
the chair on the other side 
of the desk was empty. Brownson 
seemed to have realized that he’d 
done the best he could. The 
others, being wiser, would have 
known all along there was noth- 
ing to be done. His self-judgment 
stood. 

“Damn saints!” the colonel 
said, grinning. The trouble was 
that he still liked them. 

Trying not to think of Four 
again, he picked up the gun and 
then a final thought came to 
him. He laid it down long enough 
to write neatly and clearly be- 
hind REASONS GIVEN ou the resig- 
nation form: ir it were a snake, 

IT WOULD BITE YOU! 

A slim hand moved the gun 
away and a light voice laughed . 
at the inscrutable message he had 
written. Then his own hand was 



AlAXr SCtCNCE FiCTtON 



taken and he smiled back at 
Four, while the room stayed sub- 
stantial and he did not. 

It was remarkable how easily 
and completely one could retreat 
from the world, clear to the point 
of invisibility. There had always 
been people like that, people 
who could lose themselves in a 
crowd or be totally unnoticeable 
at a party. They just hadn’t car- 
ried their self-effacement far 
enough. Probably the pressure of 
reality hadn't been- as savage as 
it was now. to compel both ex- 
tremes of assertion and with- 
drawal. 



Normal Loss would rise an 
infinitesimal amount, the colonel 
thought with amusement — he’d 
have to live, too. The world 
wouldn’t know why, of course. 

The devil with this world. He 
had his own to go to, and a 
woman of his own to go with. 

■‘You didn't really think I was 
going to kill myself, did you?’* 
he asked Four, feeling the need 
to make her understand and re- 
spect him. 'Tt was only a trick 
to get your attention.” 

”As if you had to,” she laugh- 
ed tenderly. 

— JAMES 11. SCHMITZ 




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